


A tree without roots

by jotunemo



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: A little whump, Angst and Feels, Asgardian Magic (Marvel), Dark Magic, Doesn't he always, Family Drama, Family Issues, Frigga (Marvel) Feels, Gen, Identity Issues, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Angst, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Magic, Magic Poisoning, POV Frigga, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Thor (Marvel), Panic Attacks, Pre-Thor (2011), Protective Thor (Marvel), References to Norse Religion & Lore, Sick Loki (Marvel), Thor (Marvel) Feels, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, amora is a little bitch, brodinsons going strong, can thor and loki ever not suffer, disaster ahead, dysfunctional asgardian royal family, just a little, kind of, loki and thor ALWAYS suffer, loki finds out he is a frost giant, no they can't, odin is trying at least a little, the strong bonds of brotherhood, thor finds out before him, where mischief lies compliant, who can survive without a little loki whump, young loki, young thor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23542852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jotunemo/pseuds/jotunemo
Summary: At first, Loki thinks it is just a headache but when he collapses on the sparring ground, he realizes that something is wrong. Something foreign is stirring inside of him, feasting on his magic, and it almost feels as if that something is alive. Growing. Sucking the air out of his lungs. The healers must purge his body of his glamour to save his life. All his glamour. Including the one spell he doesn't even know of.
Relationships: Amora/Loki (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Odin & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 103
Kudos: 173





	1. Revelation

**Author's Note:**

> So, here is another one of the many ideas I currently have whirling through my head somewhat fleshed out. This one isn't quite as angsty as the last (which is a difficult level to reach, I guess) but it was also supposed to be a one-shot that has now taken on a life of its own in my head and is possibly going to turn into another multichapter affair (gah). So, as always, it would be helpful if you would let me know what you think.

“Better,” comes Odin’s assessment and, to Loki’s astonishment, the Allfather’s voice isn’t quite as thick with disappointment as it usually is, “but there is still plenty of room for improvement.”

Loki lowers his daggers and it takes all the resolve he has not to blow out a sigh of exasperation and let his exhaustion show. He glances at Fandral, whom he has been battling on the sparring grounds of the Asgardian palace for the past two hours and who exhibits no sign of the fatigue that is overwhelming the God of Mischief. _All be damned_ , Loki thinks and his heart slowly sinks. “Again?”

“Again,” his father confirms.

Loki closes his eyes for a second too long and he curses himself for this small gesture of reluctance but he can’t help it. He must provide at least a small remedy for the dull ache in the back of his head that has been bothering him since the middle of the previous night and that seemingly worsens with every passing minute, slowing his movements.

“What is the matter?” Odin sneers. “Have you not assured me that a sword is too cumbersome for your style of combat and that wielding daggers instead of a larger blade would allow you to fight with your natural, lethally feline grace?” This raises a few laughs and giggles from the Asgardian soldiers lounging around nearby, awaiting their turn, and Loki silently curses himself once more because those words tumbled off his tongue after a few sips of mead too many and he knew the minute they dissipated into the air that the old bastard would hold them against him. “Well, those are not quite the words I would use to describe what I have just witnessed,” Odin concludes gruffly. “Now, please. Try again, son.”

Fandral smirks at Loki with nothing but his eyes and the God of Mischief can almost hear his unspoken words. _That tongue of yours is going to get you killed one day_.

 _One day_ , Loki muses silently, and, for some reason, the thought is so unsettling that it raises the hairs on his arm. Not that he has time to think about it at this very moment. Fandral is already approaching him wielding a rapier bearing the name of Fimbuldraugr, his lean, muscular body poised to attack, and Loki knows that he can’t allow himself to waste even the fraction of a second.

They circle each other like two soldiers dancing to the choreography of close combat in the light of the setting sun under the watchful eyes of Odin Allfather. Loki knows all the steps of that dance, all the motions. His movements are usually much swifter and he much more agile but no matter how fiercely he tries to bring his tiring body to obedience, his headache is slowing him down and his vision begins to swim when he jerks his dagger forward, blurring Fandral’s face into a fuzzy blob.

Loki reaches for his magic in order to heal himself although he hasn’t yet perfected the spell. Frigga has cautioned him against this, has tried to teach him that wielding magic is dangerous for the unexperienced, but he cannot falter now, not with father watching, no, but the second he taps into his glamour, his strength does falter. Something explodes in his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He gasps out for breath and loses his balance, stumbling forward, which Fandral uses to his advantage. Loki doesn’t know what _exactly_ the other man does. He feels something crashing into his side and the next thing he knows is that the back of his head is slamming onto the ground before his vision goes entirely white for a few heartbeats.

“Now that,” Fandral begins in a gleeful whisper, “was even less graceful than a … Loki?” Panic creeps into the warrior’s voice as he grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. The God of Mischief opens his eyes, trying to blink away the vertigo. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Loki presses out as he props himself up on his elbows even though the world is still spinning around him because he is more than uncomfortably aware of the Asgardians who just had the pleasure to watch this latest demonstration of unmanliness and physical frailty of his. “I am … fine.”

But he is not fine. He can sense it. _Something_ foreign is stirring inside of him and it almost feels as if that something is alive. Growing. Sucking the air out of his lungs.

Loki must find out what it is, must find the spell he experimented with that is now turning against him, for he is sure that it is not a physical illness that is afflicting him. He must find that spell, yes, he must find it _soon_ and he must find it all by _himself_ before his mother realizes that he has skipped over all the spells she has given him to study lately, focusing his attention on the much more enticing and much more complex sorcery in the ancient books. Before his mother loses what little faith she still has in him now that all others have apparently given up on the notion that he could one day be something more than Thor’s younger, good-for-nothing trickster brother.

“Stand aside,” Odin’s voice commands and Fandral shuffles away from his side as his father crouches down beside him. “What ails you, son? Are you sick?”

Loki shakes his head and then blinks several more times, until Odin’s grim one-eyed face finally swims into focus. “I might have … overexerted myself,” Loki begins, careful not to sound too out of breath as his father helps him to his feet, “practicing … sorcery. I know you don’t … approve of that and I … will try … to be more careful … in the future.”

The Allfather’s seeing eye narrows at him and Loki stares back because that is the only way he can regain his standing.

“You are excused from practice for today,” Odin decides eventually. “Go and rest. And leave the sorcery be until I have spoken to your mother about the spells she has been teaching you. Fandral,” he barks, turning his attention away from him, “choose your next opponent.”

 _This is all Amora’s fault_ , Loki thinks as he stumbles back into the palace, carefully setting one foot in front of the other, his chest heaving. It was Amora who first told him about those spells in those ancient books, taking advantage of his innate curiosity and hunger for knowledge. It was Amora who told him that his mother was shielding from him Asgard’s true, most powerful magic because she was afraid he was going to grow into a much more powerful sorcerer than she could control. “I can sense it in you,” Amora would purr into his ear. “Your magic is not like theirs.”

 _Damn her_ , Loki grouches inwardly. He isn’t even supposed to see her and if Odin finds out that he did meet with her _again_ the previous night, the Allfather will be furious. Although it isn’t like that … He only saw her because … Words elude him, even mentally, as thinking becomes almost as difficult as the walk back to his chambers where he will rest, shortly, maybe sleep for a while before he has to … His mind is whirling. Just a few more steps … Just a few more … His lungs are so tight that a cold panic pours down his spine and he tries to breathe as shallowly as possible because if he doesn’t, he will collapse … collapse right here, in the hallways … collapse …

“Loki?” someone asks through the ocean roaring inside his ears.

It is Thor. Why does it have to be Thor, _of all people_?

His legs give out.

“Brother!”

Loki’s hand reaches out of its own accord, blindly groping around for support, and then the world plunges into darkness.

* * *

“Loki!” Thor shouts as his brother crumbles against his chest, sinking into his arms. “Loki, what is wrong?” he shouts in a voice thick with terror, shaking him so forcefully that Loki’s teeth clatter against each other. No, no, _no_. He just saw him a few hours ago when he left for the sparring grounds and he seemed fine, didn’t he? Well, maybe not _fine_ , because the sparring ground is the only place in all of the Nine Realms where his little brother loathes being the center of attention but he wasn’t sick when he saw him earlier. What could possibly have happened that he is now _so_ weak? “Mother?” Thor bellows. “Guards! I need _help_!”

Frigga bolts out of her chambers where she usually rests at this time of the day and replenishes her magic in the silent hours of the late afternoon when the palace remains quiet until dinner. His mother rushes towards him, her face drawn into a mask of pure horror. “What happened?”

“I d-don’t know,” Thor howls. “He lost consciousness a-and I …” His voice trails off when his panic submerges him.

Frigga is sitting beside them now, her hands over Loki, her glamour sparking to life beneath her palms in shades of blue, gray and purple. “He has poison inside of him,” she gasps, locking eyes with him. “I cannot tell what kind. We must get Loki to the healing room. _Now_!”

Thor’s head nods on its own and he sweeps Loki into his arms, carrying him to the healers’ chambers, Frigga panting next to him.

“Quick,” his mother commands in an almost-screech when they burst into the healing room. “My son needs your attention!”

Thor’s heart is beating so erratically inside his chest that he thinks he himself might faint as he lowers Loki onto one of the beds and three healers rush towards him.

“He has been poisoned,” whispers Frigga as Eir, the Aesir’s most skilled healer, conjures up the Soul Forge around his brother. “By what, I cannot tell.”

“We will know soon, my Queen,” Eir assures her.

Minutes tick by in a silence that almost undoes Thor until, finally, the healer speaks. “It is not his body that has been poisoned.”

Odin barges into the room then, possibly alerted by his two ravens that are perching on either of his father’s shoulders when he makes his entrance.

“It is his magic,” Eir concludes solemnly. “His glamour has become infested with a black magic that is,” she pauses, gaze lowered, “that is corrupting his.”

Thor glances up at his parents and sees that both of their faces go white with terror. “Wh-what?” stammers the God of Thunder. “What d-does that mean?”

“His magic,” Frigga begins in a broken whisper, “all of our magic, it is inextricably linked with every fiber of our beings. Every atom. Every cell. If we do not cleanse Loki’s magic, he will die.”

Thor gulps, his chest tight with fear. “C-can you do that?”

Tears well into Frigga’s eyes. “Such a spell is strenuous and very dangerous.”

“And the dark magic has spread too far for me to perform a cleansing spell,” says Eir with a nod towards the Soul Forge that is showing a projection of the veins of Loki’s magic, the bright emerald shades of his glamour rapidly blackening before their eyes. “If we identify the source of black magic, we might reverse the spell but we are unable to do that without … extracting his glamour.”

“ _Extracting_ it?” A quiet sob slips past Frigga’s quivering lips.

“Have you lost your senses, woman?” Odin blares at the healer and for the first time in his life, Thor sees fear flashing through his one eye. “Purging his body of his magic will cost his life!” Húginn and Múninn caw on his shoulders for emphasis.

The God of Thunder can’t tell if it is his father’s words or the sight of him succumbing to anguish that churns his stomach. 

“Forgive me for such a rather brutal suggestion, my Lord Odin,” says the healer, “but it is my estimation that the prince’s life will be forfeit before the new day comes if we do not attempt to extract his magic.”

Thor’s mind goes blank for a moment.

Odin gasps.

“It has been accomplished before,” Eir continues softly, her gaze searching for Frigga’s as if urging her to recall a shared experience. “We will sustain him with healing glamour as soon as I have extracted his and thus keep him alive for as long as it takes to find the counter spell. I promise you, we will not let Prince Loki die, your majesties.”

“Do it,” says Thor.

The healer gazes at him in confusion.

“You have our permission,” Frigga confirms and they all watch in silence as the healer commands the Soul Forge to extract Loki’s glamour from his body. Flashes of blacks and dark greens and the occasional bright green erupt from his brother’s skin and sizzle into what looks like a miniature black hole that sucks up his magic and possibly stores it.

The extraction sends Loki’s arms and legs thrashing, his chest rising and falling with rapid, anguished groans.

Thor bites his lip so hard that he can taste blood when the other two healers try to press his brother’s jerking body down as gently as they can.

Minutes pass that feel like hours.

“What is _taking_ you so long?” Thor bawls at the healer before he can contain the explosive mixture of anger, fear and impatience. He reaches for Loki’s hand and squeezes it.

“Forgive me, my prince, but there is one powerful spell that I can’t seem to reverse. It’s almost as if …” Eir’s words trail off and her eyes narrow in intense concentration until she squeezes them shut, wincing in pain. “He won’t let me …”

Frigga exhales a trembling breath, whispering her husband’s name.

Thor glances up at his father and sees him raising his hand, his fingers sparkling with the golden flame of Asgard’s most ancient, most potent magic. He takes a step towards his youngest and pulls out that last intractable spark of Loki’s magical signature. Finally, Loki’s body stills and Thor heaves a sigh of relief.

The sensation is short-lived, however, for the beads of sweat on his brother’s face slowly begin to crystallize when his body is purged of the last trace of Asgardian glamour. “Wh-what … are you … w-why are you,” Thor stammers but he can’t find the words so he just stares as fine silver markings thrust through Loki’s cheeks, chin and forehead and his pale white skin darkens into a rich sapphire-blue.

For a few seconds, the Thundergod’s mind refuses to make sense of what he sees but then Loki’s hand in Thor’s turns into an icicle and the coldness biting into his skin jolts him out of his stupor. He bounces to his feet, his hands curling into fists. “Why is he turning into a Frost Giant?” Thor bellows, his gaze flitting from his mother to his father and back to his mother.

Odin Allfather maintains his grim silence without as much as a blink of his one eye.

“He is not turning into a Frost Giant,” whispers Frigga softly. “Loki _is_ a Frost Giant. He was born Jötunn.”


	2. Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the feedback! You guys are the best <33  
> Here is chapter two! Please, let me know if it drags a little because it's probably the heaviest-on-dialogue chapter I've written in a long time. Enjoy xx

_Loki **is** a Frost Giant_.

 _A Frost Giant_.

 _A FROST GIANT_.

 ** _LOKI IS A FROST GIANT_**.

His mother’s words clatter through Thor’s head, slamming against the walls of his skull and bouncing off of them with a distorted, almost mocking echo, and they don’t make sense, no, in that moment, nothing makes sense anymore. His stomach gives a violent lurch. The world he has known crumbles to pieces around him and there is nothing, _nothing_ , he is quite sure of that, that _nothing_ will ever be able to piece it back together.

Because Loki is a … And if he wakes … if he _sees_ that blue skin… that hideous blue … _How dare you speak that way, it’s not hideous, that is still your brother you are talking about!_ But if Loki sees that … with his mind as susceptible to self-destructive impulses as it is, he will … he will … Thor’s heart leaps into his throat at the thought he can’t finish.

“Frigga,” Thor hears Odin say, his father’s voice firm with authority.

The Queen complies with her husband’s unspoken command and Loki’s Jötunn form vanishes beneath thin golden waves of sparkling glamour before an illusion of the Asgardian guise he has worn all his life envelops him. Frigga glances up at Eir and her apprentices. “You never saw.”

The healers blink as a spell of forgetfulness enshrouds them.

Thor opens his lips in protest but no sound comes out.

“I have sustained the prince’s body with healing glamour,” Eir informs them. “It will not replenish his strength but it will keep him alive,” she continues as she hands Frigga a crystal the size and shape of a pinecone that has formed out of the black hole containing Loki’s magic. “I hope you find the source of the black magic that poisoned him, for I have never felt anything like it before.”

“You have my sincerest thanks,” Odin says with a hardly perceptible bow of his head. “Now, we’ll need some privacy.”

“Wait,” Thor cuts in. “Does that mean he won’t wake up before we find out what poisoned his magic?”

Eir’s head lowers. “I fear not, my prince. It depends on his strength but the healing glamour can only accomplish so much now that his body has been robbed of the life-sustaining powers of his own magic. I apologize that I cannot do more to help your brother.”

Thor nods absentmindedly.

Frigga locks eyes with him, reaching for his hand. “I will find the source and the counter spell,” she promises him with a squeeze when Eir and the others have left the healing room. “We are not going to let your brother die or spend the rest of his days in a glamour-induced slumber.” She squeezes his hands once more before she kneels down to caress Loki’s forehead and cheek. “I will find out what happened to you, my love,” she whispers and brushes a soft kiss against his forehead.

Against his white skin that is nothing but a guise. Nothing but a lie. A lie told by his parents for nine hundred years to hide the painfully outlandish truth that Loki … is a _Frost Giant_.

No, he can’t be. Loki is _his little brother_. He isn’t one of _them_. He _can’t_ be one of them. Maybe, this has all been a mistake. Maybe his mind has been playing tricks upon him, causing him to hallucinate or hear wrongly. Maybe there is something in the healing room that is beclouding his senses, some foreign magic that doesn’t agree with him. Maybe … “Dispel the illusion, mother,” says Thor before he knows that he has been thinking it.

“No,” Odin commands.

Frigga’s eyes travel from her husband to her son and back to her husband as she rises to her feet.

“I wish to see him,” Thor insists, lowering his voice to a soft whisper. “Please, I must see.”

Odin narrows his eye at him. “There is nothing to see.”

“But I must know if what I saw is true,” Thor pleads through clenched teeth. Frigga gives in then and the illusion dissolves. Húginn and Múninn, who are still perching on the Allfather’s shoulders, caw their dissent.

Yes, it _is_ true.

“This is not who he is,” Odin tells him, or maybe both of them, a flicker of impatience in his seeing eye. “Loki is your brother and he is our son. An Aesir prince. That is the only truth that matters. _This_ ,” he says, gesturing towards his youngest son’s true form, “matters not and he mustn’t ever know.”

“Except that this truth you speak of is a lie,” Thor comments, his heartbeat quickening with seething hot anger. “And who are you to decide what matters and what matters not to Loki? You cannot really expect me to carry on as though I never learned that you lied to him about being your son! About us being brothers!”

“You are brothers,” says Frigga. “We never meant to—”

“You be _silent_ ,” roars Thor, startling his mother but he does not even care because his rage is flooding his mind, submerging all rational thought. “Of course, Loki and I will _always_ be _brothers_. We grew up as brothers. Loki will _always_ be my brother.” He focuses his attention on Odin. “Just tell me, father. Why would _you_ do this? Why would you go out of your way to insult the Frost Giants, painting them as vile, hideous creatures in your tales of war? Why would you speak of his folk with such contempt if you took one of them in to live as your _son_?”

“Because they are,” Odin replies curtly. “Laufey is a deviant.”

“Please, do not speak like this, my love,” Frigga urges her husband. “He might hear you.”

“Laufey?” Thor echoes and his mind instantly recalls the paintings of the king of the Frost Giants in the Asgardian history books describing him as a ruthless tyrant, malicious and manipulative, whose primary goal was to maintain his own power and strengthen his own race. “Is that who his father is?”

“ _I_ am his father,” Odin snaps, the ravens indignantly cawing on his shoulders.

“But Laufey is … he is … he is your e-enemy,” Thor stammers as he searches for his father’s one-eyed gaze. He silently berates himself for sounding like such an oaf but his brain suddenly seems unable to transform his thoughts into linguistic patterns.

“He is,” Odin confirms and his face remains as emotionless as always.

“But w-why …” Thor’s words trail off as he casts a downward glance at his brother. “Why did you adopt the son of your enemy? If Laufey is such a miscreant, why did you take his son to raise him as my brother?” He snorts a contemptuous laugh. “You might want to practice your answers on me before you tell Loki.”

“Because Laufey cast him out and left him to die on a frozen rock,” Odin barks and Thor’s heart plummets into his stomach at the thought of what this revelation will do his brother’s unstable mind. “Why do you think Loki wasn’t ever supposed to know about any of that? Why do you think you aren’t ever to set foot upon Jötunheim? This law exists solely to protect your brother.”

“Protect him from _what_?” Thor demands.

Odin’s face twists into a frown. “From _this_ ,” says the Allfather as if the matter is blatantly obvious, his palm indicating Loki’s face. “From finding out that those vile creatures left him to die because they did not want him. Do you want to tell him that _truth_ , Odinson? Do you want to be the one to tell your brother that his bloodfather did not care for his life?”

“I do not,” Thor replies quietly because he fears that the truth will tip Loki’s mind over the edge, inflaming the fire of self-rejection that seems to be smoldering inside of him, but he also knows that Loki has always suspected that something about him was different. He has mentioned it many times, now that Thor thinks about it, complaining about the differences in their strength and stamina or challenging ancient Asgardian traditions that he felt were somehow placing boundaries upon him. “I am just not like you, brother,” he would often say and something dangerous would flicker through his bright green eyes for a moment, setting them ablaze. “You and father would be wise to recognize this.”

“But I still believe he needs to know.”

“Don’t be foolish, son,” hisses Odin.

“ _Foolish_?” Thor echoes, almost jabbing a finger into Odin’s chest. “Even the Allfathers who came before you perished. Not even _you_ will live forever. There will be a time when either of us ascends to your throne and inevitably has dealings with Jötunheim! I think you are being the foolish one if you think you can keep this truth hidden from him forever!”

“Have care how you speak to me!” Odin roars. “You are not king _yet_! You barely have what it takes to act as a prince of this realm and I doubt you have the wit to ever turn into a politician. You are a warrior at best but you remain a childish, arrogant and reckless boy. You are _nothing_ more than that! And I will not let a child like you question the decisions I made for the good of the Realms when you lack the experience, the wisdom and the knowledge to judge anything I have done!”

“Please,” whispers Frigga but Thor is too enraged to tell whom she is addressing.

“I might not have yet risen in your esteem highly enough to be considered a worthy successor to the throne,” the God of Thunder scoffs, “but at least, I have always lived an _honest_ life. You can’t really say the same thing about you, can you, father?”

“Do not try me,” Odin warns him. “If I say he must not know, so be it.” Húginn and Múninn caw to emphasize the threat he has left unspoken.

“Odin, please,” says Frigga, her husband’s name a two-syllable warning in her mouth that makes the Allfather glower at his wife. “We kept the truth from Loki so that we would never feel different but now that the secret has been unearthed, we cannot possibly rebury the truth.”

“Damn well you can’t,” Thor hisses through clenched teeth. “Because if Loki wakes, he will _know_ that something is wrong. He will know it is just an illusion covering him. He will feel different. By all the Realms, his hand is ice-cold. His body will be … He will _know_. You cannot hide it from him. And unless you want to cast a spell over _me_ too to make me forget what I—”

They all startle when, suddenly, Loki groans. Thor whispers his brother’s name and kneels down by the bedside, Frigga mirroring his movements. The Queen reaches for Loki’s cold, blue hand, taking it into hers.

For a few heartbeats, nothing happens but then his brother’s eyelids slowly flutter open and he demonstrates yet again that his slender frame and delicate face often fool everyone, including Thor, into believing that he is fragile when in reality he is far stronger and more resilient than most. And now the God of Thunder understands that Loki’s strength comes from having been cast out to die in the frozen wastelands of Jötunheim as an infant and surviving long enough for Odin to pick him up and give him a home.

Loki blinks and the bottom drops out of Thor’s stomach when he sees, really _sees_ , how red those eyes are. By Odin’s ravens, they are _crimson_ , they are the color of freshly drawn _blood_ and there is _no_ white in them and they look _so_ devious. Thor swallows the disgust down because those are still his brother’s eyes and he cannot possibly give in to an instinctive response prompted by the tales he heard of the wars waged against the people of Jötunheim.

“How are you feeling?” Frigga asks her youngest.

“Hot,” Loki replies in a hoarse whisper. His eyes close again and Thor finds himself breathing a quiet, involuntary sigh of relief that he immediately regrets. “M-my vision … s-something … wh-what ...”

“Your glamour has been poisoned with black magic,” Frigga explains softly. “Do you remember how that might have happened? Who could have done that to you?”

Loki blinks and then shakes his head in a clumsy movement.

“Have you been experimenting with forbidden spells again?” asks Odin without any trace of the concern oozing out of the Queen’s every pore in his voice.

A soft, reluctant nod. “No, I mean I … I-I don’t know …”

“Have you seen anyone who might have poisoned you?” Frigga continues and Thor suspects that his mother already has a very good idea of what might have happened.

A gasp.

“Loki?” Odin demands sharply.

Loki opens his eyes once more, his lids fluttering before they close again. “Amora,” he whispers at last and Thor’s rage rears up again when he hears the name of the young, blonde sorceress who is far too fond of his brother and fills his mind with dark thoughts whenever they spend time together.

“When?” Odin snarls and his tone could effortlessly cut a block of ice in half.

“L-last night,” Loki admits in a trembling whisper. “B-but … not … D-don’t be mad, father, p-please … I …”

“It is alright,” Frigga assures him softly even though it is not since the Allfather has expressly forbidden Loki to seek her company. “Just tell us what happened. In as few words as you can.”

“I-I told her,” Loki begins but his trembling voice gives proof that his strength is wavering once more, “th-that … we … cannot … see each other … any … m-more. She … she had th-that flask …”

“She made you drink something?” Frigga infers and Thor feels the power of his thunder surging through his veins when his anger explodes inside of his chest because he is certain that Amora has been trying to poison Loki’s mind against them for the longest time. Ever since his little brother got involved with the sorceress, the hoaxes he played on Thor and other Asgardians grew bolder and more humiliating. Like that one time, the Thundergod’s armor changed into a bridal gown in the middle of the diplomatic reception of the king of Alfheim in the banquet hall the previous summer, which disrupted the entire ceremony and infuriated the Allfather beyond measure. And now this.

Another slow, clumsy nod from Loki. “M-my … h-head … it started to h-hurt … during the night … but I … I th-thought …”

“It is alright,” Frigga repeats in a low whisper. “You must not speak any more. Save your strength.”

“B-but she … t-took a sip … as well,” Loki concludes. “S-so, it … c-can’t …”

“Or there is an antidote,” Odin concludes because there is not the shadow of a doubt in anyone’s mind that Amora would have done something to Loki if he rejected her. No, this woman is smitten with him and enthralled by his ability to wield sorcery, orbiting him like a vulture circles around the cadaver of a beast.

“I will find her and bring her here to answer for this,” the Allfather says and turns around, leaving the healing room without another word. Húginn and Múninn flap their wings in excitement, flying off his shoulders.

“I-I am … s-sorry.” Loki’s eyelids flutter open once more. “He is … mad, isn’t he?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Frigga whispers, stroking his head. “You need to rest now. Please, sleep.”

“Why d-does …” Loki blinks once more. “Your s-skin … it f-feels …”

Frigga draws a deep breath. Thor doesn’t realize that has been biting his lip until he tastes the blood on his tongue.

Another blink, then Loki’s sanguine eyes snap open wide, his gaze landing on his hands. “Am I … b-blue?” His hand twitches as he possibly tries to lift it closer to his face for inspection but he doesn’t seem to have any strength left inside of him to move his limbs. Panic creeps into the Trickstergod’s voice. “Wh-why is my … h-hand … _blue_?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am curious to know what you think of Odin in this particular story. I am trying a bit of a different take this time and I'm not sure yet if it's gonna work.
> 
> See you all later!


	3. Reconsideration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there, I just wanna say a few things here. First of all: Your support means a lot and I feel truly blessed that so many people seem to enjoy my stories on this site <3
> 
> Second, I have been doing the math today and if Loki is about nine hundred years old here (which means that this fic is taking place in 1864, placing it in the Where Mischief Lies period, if I'm not entirely mistaken) and if the average Asgardian lives "give or take 5000 years", it means that he has lived about 17% of his entire life. If you compare that against a human lifespan of 80 to 90 years, Loki would be around fourteen to fifteen years old in human terms (calculating with the average human age of 85). Going with Thor's age of 1500 he cites in Infinity War, he'd be around twenty.
> 
> Third, I also thought about the first Thor movie where Odin strips him of his powers and he was fine (well, not fine but, you know, just mortal and not physically weakened) but that here I imagine to be different. So what I think is that Odin did not take Thor's magic away, he just robbed him of the power to tap into it, if that makes sense. But for this story, it is my canon that if you take all that magic out of the Asgardians (and Frost Giants too, who wield their own kind of magic), they would die.
> 
> That just as a clarification. Now, onwards!

Everything is a blur. The room, the recollection of the previous night, the entire day. There is still a dull ache throbbing in the back of his head, his mouth is drier than the deserts of Midgard, his chest is tight and his skin feels as if it might burst into flames beneath the light robes he has been wearing to the sparring ground. This alone doesn’t overly worry him, for the state resembles a nasty hangover, and the Norns know that he has suffered through his fair share of those after secretly plundering Odin’s wine cellar in search for something that stills the racing thoughts chasing each other through the maze of his mind on some days.

No, what worries the God of Mischief is that his body no longer feels like his. It feels … He can’t say how it feels. He only knows that it feels _wrong_ and not because of the headache or the tightness in his chest. It feels _foreign_ , as if whatever spell it was took his mind and placed it into another body.

 _Is that possible? Of course, it is_. _It must be_. _**Everything** is possible with the right incantation, well, maybe not everything but … Focus, Loki_. _Focus_. He blinks but all he sees through the veil in front of his eyes are the blurry contours of the healing room and three fuzzy shapes. Thor is one of them, yes, he caught him, didn’t he, by all the Realms, _why won’t his vision clear_ , and his parents are there too and they are arguing but he can’t hear them, no, because his sense of hearing is as impaired as the rest of his body.

But they are here before he had a chance to find out … _The Norns be damned, why is it so_ _hot_? _It should not be this hot in the healing room, should it?_

They ask him questions, their voices distorted and far away, and he replies without fully understanding their words or seeing the expression on their faces through the mist clouding his vision.

Until Frigga says, “Your glamour has been poisoned with black magic,” and a terror surges through him, jolting his mind awake. This type of Seiᵭr is unpredictable and dangerous. Not even Loki, with his untamable curiosity and unquenchable thirst for hidden knowledge, would dare to dabble in such dark ancient forces.

Which leaves Amora.

The Enchantress, as she likes to introduce herself. What a tawdry title.

The memories of the previous night are few and indistinct at first but they slowly start trickling back into Loki’s mind. She sent a bird to his chambers that delivered him the chirping message that he was to meet her at the foot of the mountains beyond the palace at midnight. He didn’t want to, hasn’t wanted to for a while, in fact, because he has lost interest in both her feminine charms and her obtrusive attempts to convince him that he didn’t belong with his family and that they should elope to practice sorcery on their own. Those attempts were flattering at first, he can’t deny that, especially in the face of the rather underwhelming response his magic wielding skills elicit from Thor and his companions, but after a while he grew tired of her possessive manner. Odin didn’t want him to see her either or, rather, expressly forbade him to, which is why he stayed in his chambers, ignoring her invitation and hoping she would decode his intentions.

The Enchantress, however, does not accept rejection and flew into his chambers later that night in the guise of a large hawk, demanding an explanation. Which was simple enough. _The Allfather forbids it_. She did not accept this either, taunting him about being a spoiled princeling, subordinate and weak-willed. _Well, the truth is_ , he said then because he just wanted her to leave, _and I offer you my sincere apologies if that sounds harsh, but I really just don’t like you all that much anymore and would rather spend my time with myself_.

Shock flickered across Amora’s face for a split second but then her eyes hardened and her mouth twisted into a malicious smirk. _Anymore?_ She snorted a laugh. _Did you truly think I **ever** liked you?_ _The only reason I sought your company is because I pity you, Loki_. _I wanted to help you step out of your brother’s shadow_.

 _I don’t need your help for that_ , Loki replied flatly, trying to maintain a straight face even though her words felt like several blows to the gut.

 _Very well_ , said Amora. _It is refreshing to be honest sometimes, is it not? We should drink to that, princeling, don’t you think?_

At that, she produced a silver flask engraved with a dragon’s head that had two rubies set into its eyes. She took a sip before she handed it to him. He took it, hesitantly. _What is this?_

 _Just try it_ , said Amora. _The mind-numbing effect is truly astounding_.

Naturally, he did try it. Curiosity kills the cat, is what they would say on Midgard. Yes, curiosity will certainly kill the God of Mischief one day. The drink was quite strong, with the slightest hint of blackberries, and it instantly surged into his head. He took three large sips and handed the flask back to her. _Well? Goodbye then, Enchantress_. _It was a pleasure to idle away the summer with you_.

 _Your sarcasm will be missed_ , Amora said on a chuckle before she transformed back into hawk form and flew out of the window. _Farewell, Loki_.

“Loki?” he hears his father’s sharp demand and he tells his parents about the encounter. Well, about some of it. About the most important parts of it because the exact nature of their, for lack of a better term, relationship doesn’t concern them and because he can’t really speak. Drawing breath seems almost impossible and every word that leaves his mouth puts a little more pressure on his chest.

He still can’t see and hear properly either, even though the voices around him become sharper, somewhat less distorted, and Odin’s voice doesn’t sound pleased at all. Loki can tell that the Allfather is furious even though his mother assures him that he is not to worry about his father’s temper.

_As if!_

Frigga puts a hand on his head, telling him to rest, but even though her voice is as soft and soothing as he remembers her palm on his skin feels … it feels wrong. Just like his body feels wrong. It feels even more wrong than his own body, actually, because it is no longer as warm and comforting as it used to be. It feels foreign, alien, like touching the slick scales of a fish with bare hands. Granted, that doesn’t even make a lot sense, does it, no, not really, but her skin does not feel like his. They are _two different skins_ and he recoils from the realization.

The shock clears his vision enough for him to see that his hands are no longer white but a rich, sapphire blue. He hears his mother drawing a sharp breath. “Am I blue?” Loki asks even though the question comes out in a breathless stammer. He tries to move, tries to lift his arm, but his body doesn’t feel only wrong, no, it also feels as though someone has put his body in liquid gold that has now hardened. “Wh-why is my … h-hand … _blue_?” Loki screeches and panic floods through him because, for the love of all the Realms, his skin is _blue_ and his mother’s hand feels leathery and no longer warm on his skin, his skin that is _blue_ , **_BLUE_** , _why is this happening and how is that even **POSSIBLE**_ , and he has no access to his linguistic prowess and he can’t even _move_ and it is so _hot_ he thinks he might suffocate.

“I-I am … not … m-my _self_ … I d-don’t … f-feel like …” His heart slams against his ribcage with such a force that it knocks what little air he had left out of his lungs because he can’t speak and _WHY CAN’T HE SPEAK?_ He gasps for breath but there is no air, there is _NO AIR_ and why does everything feel so _wrong_?

“Loki, shhh,” Frigga murmurs, gently pressing his shoulders deeper into the single pillow on the healing bed but he can’t move and he can’t speak and tears are blinding his vision and he gasps for air that isn’t there, no, it’s not _there_ , there is no oxygen LEFT for him and he is going to suffocate and he gasps, again and again and again, but there is NO AIR, there is no AIR IN THIS ROOM, there is ONLY UNBEARABLE HEAT, and he hears Thor mumble, “Restore it,” from a thousand leagues away and Loki has no idea what that is even supposed to MEAN and does it even matter because he is SUFFOCATING AND _NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT_.

“You are upset, dearest, you need to rest and everything will be fine,” Frigga urges him softly but her voice is shaking with fear and _how believable are her words if she is THAT UPSET_? “Your magic has been poisoned, Loki. You feel different because the healers had to purge your body of the magic to keep you alive on healing glamour.”

Those words calm him a little at last, for they seem to make sense even though he doesn’t really understand how. Thor grabs his hand in both of his and tells him to look at him but his brother’s hand doesn’t feel much different than mother’s, no, it’s _not_ _the SAME SKIN AS HIS EITHER_ _why does everyone’s skin feel like this because YOUR OWN SKIN IS BLUE, LOKI, IT IS **BLUE**_ but when he blinks and looks through the blur of his tears, it no longer is. His hand is white again and he gulps, choking on a sob.

“You will be fine, brother,” Thor murmurs in a broken whisper and he is scared and _why is Thor scared, HE IS NEVER AFRAID OF ANYTHING._ “Father is looking for Amora. He will find her and make her give up the antidote so that we can cleanse your magic and give it back to you.”

Loki draws a careful breath and this time there is a little air for him to suck in. He draws another deep breath and another, his lungs filling with new oxygen.

“And in the meantime, I will look for a counter spell myself,” Frigga assures him. She is holding a pinecone-shaped black crystal in her hand, showing it to him. “Your magic is in here and the traces of the signature of the black magic that poisoned you is too. I will go and study it right away and I promise you that one of us will find a cure and that you will feel like yourself again.”

There is a slight edge to her voice but Loki is too befuddled and too exhausted to think about what that means, so he just nods or tries to, anyway. His eyelids are fluttering shut. His body is leaden.

“I will be back soon,” Frigga promises him with a kiss on his forehead before she leaves the room.

“Please, try to rest,” Thor says softly and Loki can’t recall his brother’s voice ever being _that_ soft. “You don’t want to burn down the healing glamour sustaining you, do you?”

Loki swallows. “Will you stay, brother?” he whispers even if he hates himself for asking this.

“Of course,” Thor replies, instantly making himself comfortable on the edge of the bed. There is something in his voice that isn’t quite right either but Loki doesn’t have the mental strength to dwell on it. He knows that it will take him forever to forgive himself for such a display of weakness once his strength is restored but he leans his head against Thor’s side anyway because right now he can’t lie here just by himself.

“You will be fine,” Thor whispers, squeezing his shoulder with his leathery, alien Thundergod fingers. “You will be fine.”

* * *

“You will be fine,” Thor repeats he doesn’t know how many times until Loki’s eyelids finally stop fluttering and his breathing slows to the steady rhythm of sleep. Tears well into his eyes as he mourns the life that he woke up to this morning and that is now inevitably gone.

Loki is a Frost Giant by birth.

His father, whom he admired fiercely all his life, is a liar that took the son of his archenemy and raised him on Asgard, concealing his origins with the mightiest glamour of the Realm Eternal.

His mother, whom he loved and trusted deeply, is a liar as well, keeping her husband’s secret.

And when his little brother wakes again, they will have to unveil the truth because Loki’s mind will not let him forget what happened. Loki’s mind does not operate in such a way. Loki’s mind is always racing at a dazzling speed, always noticing what slips past Thor and most other people, always operating against him. They might have been able to calm him down by restoring the illusion for now but Loki will not forget how he felt during those horrid minutes of blank terror washing over him because he has always felt different. He will seek answers. And if his family does not give those answers to him, he will find them on his own and he will hate Thor too if he chooses to hide the truth from his brother.

Thor thinks that maybe, possibly, Odin has been right that Loki must not ever know. The Allfather might have even had good intentions for keeping his true origin from his adopted son. The way Loki reacted to a mere glimpse of his blue skin is proof enough of that and Thor scolds himself for subjecting his brother to such a shock in such a vulnerable state. After what Eir told them, he couldn’t have known that Loki would wake so quickly but that does not truly make him feel any better. It is his fault that Loki had to suffer through this moment of sheer terror but that moment is nothing in comparison to what he will feel when he will look at himself in the mirror and will see those blood-red eyes staring back at him out of a deep blue face lined with silver markings.

Thor wants to protect Loki from that, he wants to protect him _so_ _badly_ , but he knows deep down that he can’t because Loki knows, he _already_ knows, maybe he has even known or suspected _for a while_ , and even if Frigga had not dispelled the illusion, he would have still _felt_ different underneath the glamour. He would have still noticed that the texture of Frigga’s Aesir hand that she placed upon his Jötunn skin felt different.

No, he can’t lie to Loki. He can’t _ever_ lie to Loki about anything because his brother is too perceptive, too intelligent, too suspicious, too curious.

For better or for worse, Thor knows that when Loki wakes again, he will have to tell him the truth if he does not wish to finally cut through the bond of their brotherhood that has felt brittle enough anyway lately, even without such a dark secret hovering between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where Mischief Lies nation rise and tell me what you think of this Amora :)


	4. Dread

Yet, Loki doesn’t wake, not for a few days and nights. Apparently soothed by his parents’ promise to find the cure and Thor’s promise to stay by his side, he stays in his magic-induced regenerative sleep, his chest softly rising and falling with shallow breaths, his lips standing slightly open.

After the first day, they carry him to his chambers, where Thor stays and waits with a patience he didn’t know he possessed. He paces the length of the room as Frigga tries to determine the origin of the black Seiᵭr Amora used to poison his brother and does not dare to leave the chambers for long in case Loki awakens alone, overwhelmed by fear and confusion. He eats his meals by Loki’s bedside, showers in his bath and tries to keep himself occupied with leafing through the pages of his brother’s impressive collection of books that he has never _truly_ looked at before but he is too agitated and too untutored in magic to make sense of half of what he is reading. He keeps the doors to the balcony open, letting the cold autumn air stream into the chambers even though it chills him but he knows that the temperature in the healing room did not agree with Loki’s Frost Giant body and he wants him to sleep as comfortably as possible.

When Odin has not returned on the dawn of the third day and Frigga’s attempts to find the spell remain fruitless, she leaves Asgard to seek the advice of the Norns. Before she embarks upon that journey, she takes a golden ring with tiny, curved horns from Loki’s chest of drawers and slips it onto his finger, linking the spell of her Aesir illusion to it. “It is going to be visible for as long as he wears this,” she explains softly, slipping it off half an inch and revealing a sliver of sapphire skin. “I trust you to remove it whenever you think it wise or necessary.”

“Do you really have to leave?” Thor asks, his heart sinking in his chest. It is a rare occurrence that both Odin and Frigga leave Asgard at the same time and, for reasons he cannot explain, the thought of being alone here with Loki instills in him a sense foreboding. He no longer trusts his parents to find the right words to appease his little brother’s troubled mind after what they said earlier about his heritage being of no importance but the responsibility they place upon his shoulders disturbs him all the same.

“I see no other way,” Frigga says, with an edge of reluctance in her voice. “Amora is resourceful and cunning, and I am afraid that Loki might have taught her to bend the rules of magic to her will. That is a dangerous skill to possess and it is, undoubtedly, what drew her to Loki. Your father, he does not want to face this but …”

Thor waits a few heartbeats. “What?”

“Neither Loki’s magic nor his curiosity can be tamed even if Odin,” Frigga replies softly but then she stops herself. “This is a story for another time. I do not know how powerful Amora is and I fear it might be days before your father will be able to track her down and I cannot tell for how long …” Once again, her words falter.

“He will survive?” Thor finishes and ice pours down his back. “Like this?”

“We made a mistake,” Frigga replies but she seems to be looking through him, her gaze suddenly focused inwardly. “I made a mistake. A selfish mistake. Your brother told me how different he feels and I knew how it tormented him but still I chose not to reveal the truth, for I feared that I would lose his trust. I could not bear the thought of that. I clung to him but the tighter I held on, the stronger he tore away from me, gravitating towards her. You see, son, love does make you selfish sometimes.”

Thor gulps.

“I love you both,” Frigga continues and the pain flickering in her eyes stabs into the Thundergod’s stomach like the tip of a sharpened sword. “I love you both with my whole heart but I have done wrong by Loki. I must make it right before it is too late.”

“It will not be too late,” Thor assures her and himself in a trembling whisper. “He will live. He will be fine.”

A smile ghosts the Queen’s lips. “Take care of him. I will return as soon as I can.” She places a hand onto his shoulder, squeezing it gently, and then she leaves Loki’s chambers.

It takes Thor’s mind a few minutes to realize that she has not endorsed his prediction but by that time, his mother has long closed the door behind her. For the next few hours, he paces the room, trying to keep the dread at bay. He steps out onto the balcony and lets out a scream, which conjures a thick blanket of dark clouds that immediately swallows up all the morning sunlight that has tinged the Realm Eternal’s pillars with a soft golden glow. He paces some more. He rejects a request from the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three to see him that is delivered to the doors of Loki’s chambers by a guard. He orders a meal from the kitchen and stuffs himself full of meat, swallowing large amounts of mead but it does nothing to calm him down. He resumes pacing. Eventually, he nods off in one of the armchairs in Loki’s chambers, drained by his worries, but nothing has changed when his eyes snap open again.

* * *

Loki’s eyelids begin to flutter during the night between the fourth and the fifth day. Thor is lounging in the armchair again, his feet propped up on the edge of his brother’s bed, and he is leafing through a book about the Jötnar and the magic they wield. He catches the movement when he glances up at him from the pages. “Brother?” he asks carefully, almost hesitantly, afraid that Loki’s eyelids only flutter in his imagination.

“I am thirsty,” Loki croaks.

Thor jolts to his feet and slams the book shut in one fluid movement, grabs a jug and a mug from the tray of his latest meal and rushes to the bathroom to pour the rest of the mead into the sink and fill the jug with water. Loki is still unable to prop himself up and Thor has to steady the back of his head when he brings the mug to his lips. His brother empties three mugs of water, gulping in between, his face twisting. “Are you alright?” Thor whispers when he puts the mug down on the nightstand.

“I dare say this question is offensive and also quite redundant,” Loki points out in a shallow voice, his eyelids fluttering shut again.

Thor cannot help but exhale a quiet laugh of relief in response to his brother’s sharp tone. “I am sorry. But … how are you feeling?”

“Foolish,” Loki whispers and at least he can speak now without the heavy breaths of panic wrecking his sentences. “But I suppose _you_ must feel quite satisfied that you were right about Amora after all.”

Thor’s jaw drops. “Do you truly think so little of me?” he gasps, dread washing over him. “I wish I had been wrong. I wish for nothing more than that.” When his brother gives no answer, he takes a deep breath. “But did you … you did break up with her, yes?”

“Yes,” Loki whispers, eyes still closed. “I have grown tired of her.”

“Did you tell her that?” asks Thor. “In those words?”

“Almost,” comes Loki’s soft response and the corners of his lips twitch as if he is about to smile. Thor sees Amora in front of him, sees how she used to observe his brother like a lioness on the prowl, a feral glint in her bright green eyes as she poised, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and dig her claws into his skin to claim him as her prey. “You should not say something like that to a woman’s face.” _Especially not to the face of a woman like that_.

A faint chuckle escapes Loki’s lips. “Since when are you an expert on what to say and not to say to a woman’s face?” He opens his eyes, blinking several times to make eye contact with him. “Your lexicon shrinks dreadfully whenever … the Lady Sif appears, so your advice … does not really count for … anything.”

Thor feels the heated rush of embarrassment fly from his chest to his face and opts for a verbal counterpunch to save his dignity. “At least, I never got poisoned by a woman because I rejected her.” He playfully punches Loki’s arm, as gently as he can, and it does not occur to him that Amora must have been carrying the poison on her person at all times _just in case_ Loki would one day displease her. “Hey, you do know what that means, don’t you, brother?”

“What?” Loki obliges.

“You might be turning into a man after all,” Thor taunts him and the giggle that escapes his brother’s lips, faint though it might be, warms his heart because it was all he wanted to hear. That giggle is all that it takes to provide Thor with the hope that maybe his little brother’s mind has momentarily forgotten what he saw earlier and that he might be able to tell him the truth later, when he isn’t confined to his bed in such a vulnerable state.

“Stop it,” Loki whispers with the shadow of a grin plucking at his lips, his eyes closing again.

“But jests aside,” Thor continues, “how did she trick you into ingesting the poison?”

“She didn’t,” says Loki softly, a hint of defeat in his voice. “I drank it … voluntarily.”

Thor straightens on the edge of his brother’s bed. “You did _what_?”

“It was a farewell drink,” Loki replies with his eyes still closed, his voice almost steady even though he can’t seem to raise it above a hoarse whisper. “She took … the first sip. How was I supposed to know it was poison? I can’t yet … see into the future. I’m not a witch.”

“You know, for one so smart, you are quite gullible sometimes,” Thor remarks. “I can’t believe you trusted her like this.”

Loki groans. “Are you done?”

“My apologies,” Thor stammers. “I didn’t mean to … I just …”

“Is father still furious?” Loki asks into the silence that ensues.

Thor’s stomach gives a lurch. “He has not returned yet. And neither has mother. She is seeking the counsel of the Norns,” he elaborates when his brother’s forehead twists into a frown.

“For how long,” Loki whispers, his lids blinking rapidly with his frantic efforts to open his eyes.

“Five days,” Thor replies softly.

“It is that serious, huh?” Loki asks and his face screws up in fear, his lips beginning to quiver.

“It is not,” Thor hurries to say, desperately searching for a way to engage his brother’s mind to shield it from another surge of panic. “I mean, how would _I_ know? I assume you know the magic Amora is capable of wielding better than anyone else in this Realm.”

Loki draws in a deep, trembling breath. “Not really, no.”

“How come?” Thor asks because until this moment he assumed that they have been spending the entire summer practicing the spells Frigga has not yet wanted Loki to experiment with together.

“Because most of the time,” Loki begins but then falls silent again. Thor counts to nine in his head, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding that speeds up his heartrate and fills his stomach with ice, before he asks, “What?”

“Most of the time, she made _me_ wield magic,” Loki begins once more and then draws another shaking breath. “She watched me. I think she wanted … It was almost like … I think she wanted to _test_ me.”

“Why would she do that?” Thor asks.

“Because, for some reason, she was convinced that my magic is not Asgardian.” Without warning, Loki’s eyes snap open, realization flashing across his slender face, and Thor instantly knows that he has hoped in vain. His jaw clenches.

* * *

“Your magic is _not_ like theirs,” Amora would purr into his ear to persuade him to leave behind his home and his family to join her in her delusional quest to become the mightiest sorcerers the Nine Realms have ever seen. “I can sense it in you. Your magic does not come solely from Asgard.” Loki has never attached credence to her ramblings because _where else in all the Realms_ would his magic come from but now that the words have left his mouth, they suddenly gain weight and they suddenly start making sense in the way that words sometimes do once they are finally released from the voiceless void of the skull.

“My hand,” Loki pants and he fiercely despises the hoarse whisper his voice has been reduced to in his current state of physical exhaustion. He glances at his white hand and spots the ring on his finger— _have you been wearing this before, no, I don’t think you have_ —and then searches for Thor’s gaze even though his vision remains blurry at the edges. “My hand turned blue, did it not? I did _not_ dream that.”

His brother shakes his head, reluctance oozing out of his every pore. “You didn’t.”

“What does that mean?” Loki brings himself to ask. “What does it really … What happened?” His voice turns shrill. “What _happened_ to me?”

He can hear Thor swallow.

“Tell me the truth, brother,” Loki pleads as softly as he can even though he dreads Thor’s words because if Amora was right, if his magic is _not of Asgard_ ... He cannot bear to finish the thought but another one clatters into his mind right after the last. _What if **you** were right? What if you have no place among the Asgardians because you aren’t **one of them**? _For the better part of his life, Loki has felt a sense of restlessness, as if there is so much more to him than Asgard allows him to be. He has felt like a tree without roots that is swaying dangerously in a storm, always in danger of being felled by the next strong gust of wind sweeping through its branches. It was not Amora who first drew his attention to the fact that he was not like his family. It was not Amora who made him feel that he did not belong. No, her vile words, undoubtedly spoken with malicious intent, merely confirmed what his subconscious had already known, deep inside.

He _is_ different. He has _always_ been different.

And his skin is … blue. It is _blue_. Well, right now, it is white but … “Don’t lie to me, please,” Loki whispers. “You couldn’t even if you … wanted to …” His voice fails him and anger at his own vulnerability rises in the pit of his stomach when the strength of both his mind and his body dwindle again but he cannot stop himself from stammering, “B-brother, please … Wh-what …”

“I will show you,” Thor says eventually, his tone wrought of reluctance and dread. “And I will tell you the truth but before I do, I want you to know that it will not change anything between us, alright?”

Loki feels his lips opening but no sound comes out because the panic that creeps up on him in response to his brother’s words nebulizes his own lexicon.

“ _Alright_?” Thor repeats. “You are still my brother.”

Loki nods even though he doesn’t know how he accomplishes it. He does not have a modicum of strength left in his limbs but it doesn’t matter, does it, no, because Thor grabs his hand and slips the ring he cannot remember putting on off his finger. His white skin darkens into a rich sapphire once more and his thoughts start whirling wordlessly through his head when his subconscious remembers where it has seen skin such as this before. And when the realization arrives in his conscious mind, a cold numbness spreads through his body from deep within his core.

 _Frost Giants_.


	5. Revelation Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki's brain tries to come up with explanations to protect him from the truth and Thor tries to break away from deeply entrenched racist ideologies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to everyone who recently kudoed, bookmarked and commented. Your support means a lot <33

_In a barren realm of cold and darkness the name of Jötunheim live the Frost Giants_ , Loki almost hears Odin murmur in his deep, solemn storytelling voice. _They are brutish and unruly beasts that know no warmth_. _They grow tall and strong, much taller and more muscular than most beings in the Nine Realms, and their skin is of a dark blue, disfigured by bone-shaped crests on their heads and narrow silver ridges on their face and torso that mark them as sons of Jötunheim_. _Their eyes are as red as the flames raging in the fiery depths of Muspelheim and their ice-cold touch can sear our skin until there is nothing left but black patches of burned flesh_.

No.

This is sheer _impossible_.

He might be _different_ but he is not … _No_. Loki’s heart leaps into his throat and onto his tongue. He glances at his brother for help but Thor’s face is pinched with misery and shame, and then his gaze flits to the book Thor has carelessly thrown onto the armchair, the book that bears the title _Jötunn Seiᵭr_ and a weight settles on his chest and his eyes sweep the room for more clues and he sees more books about Jötunheim and the Frost Giants piled up on the windowsill and why in the name of Yggdrasil would Thor even _pick up a book about Frost Giants?!_

Suddenly, Loki also remembers the day that he and Amora discovered a secret pathway to Jötunheim after she had taught him how to discern the signature of gateway glamour among the magic flowing through the veins of Asgard and they had gone in search for hidden portals across the Realm, traveling to Svartalfheim and Alfheim unnoticed. The day the portal to Jötunheim opened in front of him, he felt a peculiar force drawing him to that Realm, like an invisible rope pulling him away from Asgard and towards the barren rockscape blanketed by heavy snow, but the Allfather’s law ultimately made him turn around, much to Amora’s disappointment.

No.

This is _unthinkable_.

“Please, tell me that I am not,” Loki whispers tonelessly and the word tastes like venom on his tongue, “not a … Frost Giant.”

 _No, you are not_. _How could you possibly be—_

“You are,” Thor gulps and Loki’s mouth fills with bile. “When the healers had to purge your body of all its magic, father removed the spell that made you Aesir with the flame of Asgard.”

 _NO_.

“He brought you here as an infant.”

_NO!_

_Be silent!_

_This is all a mistake_. _It is nothing but a dream_. _A nightmare_.

Amora gave him a potion that captured him in this nightmarish dreamscape where he awoke as a Frost Giant. He just has to squeeze his eyes shut again because the nightmare will end, his nightmares always end, don’t they, yes, no matter what horrid thoughts his diseased psyche spews out in the small hours of the night when he lies vulnerable in slumber, eventually they pass, and this will pass too, yes, it will, he just needs to wake up.

“He adopted you because—”

“Shut up!” Loki howls. “You’re _lying_!”

Yes, Thor is lying. He is giving him a taste of his own medicine, paying him back for all the lies Loki told him just to see if he was intelligent enough to see through them. Thor is playing a trick on him, surely, yes, he is pranking him, just as Loki has pranked him so many times before. It is cruel, yes, _very_ , and maybe he even deserves it for continuously driving his brother into a frenzy, but it is a hoax. Thor is not the trickster type but he is finally getting his revenge and this is all this is. A horridly distasteful hoax so that Loki will not ever dare to fool him again.

 _You aren’t a monster, Loki_ , he tries to calm himself, to no avail. _You aren’t a hideous blue creature with bones growing out of your bald, disfigured head, are you, no, well, except that you ARE blue, aren’t you, just open your eyes and LOOK at your hand, for you will see with your own eyes that IT IS BLUE_. He carefully opens one of his eyes. Yes, the skin remains of sapphire blue and _what if he has horns and what if his face is disfigured with silver ridges and what if he has NO HAIR and he still can’t MOVE to make sure he doesn’t have horns like some demonic denizen_ _from the depths of Niflheim and what if his eyes are blood-red and full of malice_ _and what if Thor won’t ever be able to look at him again without being utterly disgusted?_

A squeal of terror wrenches from the back of his throat.

“Loki? Are you alright?”

Thor’s voice is still thick with dread, and there is apprehension in his eyes, Loki can _see_ it, he doesn’t look at him the same, no, he is trying to accustom himself to the sight of Loki and, again, that dimwitted question, he curses inwardly, _just think, brother, how could I possibly be **alright** , you moronic, uru-brained imbecile_? “I need … a mirror,” Loki pants before he knows that the thought has been shaping in his head. _I need to see_.

Thor shakes his head. “I think you need to calm down first. I prom—”

“ _Calm down_?” Loki echoes in a high-pitched screech. “ _Calm down?!?!_ ”

“Loki, please,” says Thor and he is trying to make his voice calm and even and since when is he doing that anyway, since when in the names of Odin’s ravens is the short-tempered God of roaring Thunder so _maddeningly calm_ _and caring and_ …

Loki falls into hysteria. “ _Bring! Me! A! **Mir** **ror**_!”

Thor startles into action and, with one large stride, he is at the chest of drawers, reaching for the desk mirror. “I am sorry, brother,” he stammers as he comes back to the bed, the glass side pressed against his torso. A half-sigh, half-sob slips past his lips. “I am _so_ sorry.”

“Just show me,” Loki demands, an existential dread kneading his entrails.

“Alright,” Thor agrees on a trembling exhalation and then he turns the mirror around, holding it in front of Loki’s face.

His stomach fills with ice when he sees the face staring back at him although he knows that this _can’t be him_. It’s a lie. It’s a trick. That sapphire skin that looks as hard as weathered leather? Those narrow ridges thrusting through it in the shape of claw marks on his chin and cheeks and two semi-circles on his forehead? The veins on his neck poking through the thick skin? Those black-blue lips? Those crimson eyes? That black hair that has lost its luster and is now thick and strawy and entangled?

That is _not_ him, _no_. That is not what his mirror image looks like. _It’s a lie_. _A LIE_. Amora has done him a terribly ill turn and once his strength is restored, he will have his revenge. He will … He glances from the mirror image to his hands but they’re still blue and _how can the mirror image be a LIE if his hands are really and TRULY BLUE_?

_No!_

_NO, NO, NO!_

_THAT IS NOT HIM!_

**_IT CAN’T BE HIM!_ **

**_BUT WHAT IF IT HIS?_ **

_I am just not like you, brother_. _You and father would be wise to recognize this._

 _I am just not like you_.

_I am a … I am … I am …_

Loki chokes on a sob but there is no air for him left to breathe, _not again_ , _oh please, why can’t I breathe_ , _Norns, please, just let me breathe and return my life to me_ , but he won’t EVER have his life returned, to him, will he, no, because … because … everyone in all of Asgard will KNOW because everyone will SEE and everyone will look at him with even more skepticism and disgust than ever before and nobody will ever trust him again and nobody will ever want to spend time with him again because he is a blue-skinned monster with a maniacal blood-red stare and panic envelops him and he draws in a sharp breath, or tries to, anyway, but it _never_ reaches his lungs and he squints his eyes shut tight and Thor’s hand is grabbing his neck, shaking him gently, and he is talking to him, YELLING AT HIM, but everything around him is muted as if he has dived under water and another wave of terror submerges him at the touch of his brother’s hand that is _so HOT and so WET and so FLESHY_ and it is true, isn’t it, _it must be TRUE_ because these are _two different skins, of two different species, Aesir and Frost Giant_ and that means … that means … he is …

He passes out from the shock.

* * *

Thor almost passes out with him. He doesn’t know if it is the mead or the lack of sleep or the emotional exhaustion or the fact that the coldness of Loki’s neck bites into his palm like the sharp edges of an icicle but when his brother no longer responds, his kneels buckle and he slumps to the ground beside the bed, his hand still on Loki’s neck.

 _On that blue skin_.

It should not matter to him, Thor knows this, but it does, _it does_ , and in this moment, he curses his father for telling these stories and having those books written because the God of Thunder cannot stop himself from being unsettled by _that blue skin_. He grabs Loki’s cold arm, puts his hand on it, squeezing it, whispering a string of apologies in a broken, trembling whisper, and then buries his head against Loki’s side.

Memories of the previous days wash over him when he closes his eyes.

The afternoon before Loki fell ill, Thor went out hunting in the forest and, to his surprise, Loki tagged along with him but he swiftly grew bored, complaining about the uselessness of it all because he could simply lure the wild animals towards them with magic. _That is not the point_ , Thor told him. _It is a sport_.

 _A very dull sport_ , Loki responded with an air of arrogance swirling around him.

_If you find it so very dull, then why did you come?_

A smirk, turning into a cackle. _To annoy you_.

Thor’s hand itched to smack him and eventually they returned to the palace with nothing but a single boar, immersed in a heated argument that Odin eventually had to break up by pounding Gúngir on the floor and making the ground tremble beneath their leather boots. The morning after that, before Loki collapsed on the sparring ground, they ate their breakfast together with Frigga in her chambers and Loki drained Thor’s cup with his magic when Thor brought it to his lips but, as soon as he set it back upon the table with a scowl towards his brother, it was refilled. Thor grumbled and Loki shrugged, fabricating an innocent grin, but then he did it again. And again. And again.

 _Loki, please_ , their mother admonished her youngest, _let your brother enjoy his breakfast in peace_.

Yes, Loki kindled his temper many times in the past, oftentimes maddening him on purpose just to see what would happen. Thor hates his brother’s mischievous tricks with a burning passion but in this moment, he would give everything to go back to that reality. In this moment, Thor would sacrifice his own right eye if only that meant that Loki could forget and wouldn’t ever have to find out again even though he knows that Loki has always suspected and that it will eventually be _better_ for him if he knows why he has always felt different but still Thor hates to see his little brother suffer and wishes, selfishly, that they could go on as before, with a self-satisfied Loki playing his tricks upon him and flashing him one of those sly grins … That he wouldn’t ever have to look in the mirror and see this face again …

 _This face_.

This blue, marked Jötunn face with its crimson eyes.

Yes, it is hard to look at, Thor has to admit that, and he forces himself to lift his head and study his brother’s features. The shape of Loki’s face has not changed. He still has his sharp jawline, his black hair, his slender cheeks, his nose. He has not grown two feet. He has not inherited from his biological father—he gags and hates himself for it—the crooked teeth, the deep furrows in his skin, the sharply protruding cheekbones, the hairless head with the three ridges of bone in the shape of oversized apple slices. The blue of his skin is as rich as an ocean and not at all like the pale blue-gray depicted in the books. It is a beautiful, _vibrant_ blue. Thor stretches out his hand, hesitates for a second, and then puts his finger on the ridge on Loki’s forehead, carefully tracing its crescent shape.

“You’re not a monster, brother,” he whispers even though he knows that the sight of this face will gnaw at Loki’s sanity. He hates the fact that he wasn’t able to break the truth to Loki in a more gentle, less Thundergod-like way. _I trust you to remove it whenever you think it wise or necessary_ , Frigga has said and, of course, he has failed miserably because lies and injustice infuriate him to such an extent that he feels rising within him an untamable urge to unearth the truth and right the wrongs, which sometimes leaves him quite powerless.

And because he loves Loki. Despite everything that has recently happened between them, he loves Loki more dearly than he loves anyone else and he didn’t want to lose what was left of his brother’s trust after he tried too fiercely to keep him away from the Enchantress. Didn’t want to keep such a secret from him for a minute longer than necessary.

_You see, son, love does make us selfish sometimes._

He doesn’t know, can’t tell, if he truly acted selfishly or just rashly, as is his nature. He can’t tell if Odin was right to keep the truth buried to protect Loki. He can’t tell if his mother should be judged for not wanting to lose the love of her troubled son. He no longer knows what is _right_ or _true_.

The only thing Thor knows for certain is that Loki’s life will never be the same and that there is nothing he can say to make him feel any better about the revelation of his lineage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I give Loki a break? Like, EVER? 
> 
> Who knows. Poor Loki, really. Not only did he have to go through all those hardships in the MCU and the comics, no, he is also unlucky enough to be written by someone who thrives off heaping angst, psychological torment, whump and existential suffeirng onto their favorite characters to cope with their own sickened psyche :)


	6. Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki ride the rollercoaster of emotion that is their relationship in a single conversation.

Loki is lying on a meadow, facedown, limbs sprawled outwards, blades of grass tickling his nose. He lifts his head, his gaze sweeping the landscape of the richest green stretching out towards the horizon, where the God of Thunder and Odin Allfather stand on the edge of a cliff. He recognizes the land in which once dwelled the Vikings and tries to prop himself up, shouting his brother’s name but he realizes that he does not have a voice.

 _There is a storm coming_ , says Odin solemnly, and isn’t it rather odd, Loki thinks, that he can hear his words as if he is standing right next to him even though the visual distance between them is so great that Odin and Thor are merely a few inches tall on the horizon.

He turns around and, the Allfather is right, there _is_ a storm coming, no, not a storm, a _tornado_ , a swirling tornado of ice that is rapidly approaching, spluttering snowflakes into the air. Fear settles into Loki’s stomach and he begins to crawl away, towards Thor and Odin, but his limbs are leaden and the distance between him and them does not shrink even though he is moving forward. He cries out again, cries out without a voice, and then the tornado is upon him and out of the violently rotating column of icy air step three giants that swiftly grow in size until they are eighteen feet tall at least, towering above him in whirls of snow.

 _Here he is_ , one of them says as he reaches for Loki’s right ankle, pulling him off the ground by his feet, dangling him head down at his side.

 _You come with us_ , snarls another.

 _Help me_ , Loki shouts, dread robbing his body of its breath, but the words do not make a sound when they leave his mouth. _Please, help me!_

Odin and Thor stand, unmoving.

 _Brother, please_.

Loki thrashes in the giant’s grip, limbs trembling, but the giant shakes him so violently that every sinew in his body seemingly comes unstrung.

 _They hid you from us long enough_ , says the third. _You cannot escape any longer_.

The other two grunt their approval and Loki gasps as they step into the spinning tornado and the icy air swirls around him, numbing his face, and his sense of gravity dissolves and he is thrashing once more and screaming and there is a sound coming out of his mouth _now_ , a horrid screech, and there is a weight on his shoulders, another pair of hands grabbing him, shaking him, pressing him down, and the back of his head is touching something soft and where is that softness coming from, all of a sudden and why is there—

_Loki!_

That voice …

_Loki, wake up!_

He realizes then that the giants and the spinning vortex of ice are not real, that they are not really _there_ , and he pulls away from the scenery, _pulls_ , _pulls_ , _pulls_ , until his eyes snap open and he stares into the blurred features of his brother’s face, who towers above him, his hands on his shoulders.

“Loki?”

A wail of terror tears out of his throat unrestrained, leaving him shaking.

“It was just a dream,” Thor murmurs, his hand traveling from Loki’s shoulder to the side of his head, stroking his hair. “Just a dream.”

“No,” Loki whispers breathlessly as the significance of the nightmare registers on his consciousness. He glances at his hands, lying unmovable at his side, their sapphire blue contrasting sharply with the pristine white of the duvet. “It was not _just a dream_. That is precisely the problem.”

“I am sorry,” Thor mumbles, his white, warm, fleshy Aesir hand lingering, stroking him.

“Will you stop touching me?” Loki hisses before he can restrain the words. “You aren’t mother and, quite frankly, I find your display of physical affection eerily unsettling.”

 _Mother_. The mother that is no longer his and _it is quite unfair, is it not, that Thor deserves the whole of Asgard and you don’t even deserve to know your own identity?_

Thor draws back his hand, his teeth pulling at his bottom lip. “I am sorry.”

“Stop _apologizing_ ,” Loki snaps because it sets his teeth on edge that his brother is always sorry about the things that are beyond his control but never about those that are not. “If you apologize one more time, I am going to transform you into a slug as soon as my magic is restored.”

“I am,” Thor begins, interrupting himself with a swallow. He holds up his hands, palms outstretched. “Understood.”

Loki blows out a sharp, annoyed breath. He is vaguely aware that none of this is Thor’s fault. It is not Thor’s fault that he is a Frost Giant—and, by the Norns, that name still fills his mouth with the taste of vomit—by birth. It is not Thor’s fault that Odin brought him into Asgard to raise him as the second prince. It is not Thor’s fault that Odin and Frigga have lied to him for centuries. No, his brother revealed to him the truth as soon as he discovered it but still Loki feels waves of rage and resentment surge upwards from the depths of his stomach because Thor will not ever have to face a dreadful realization such as this after years of suspicion that he doesn’t _belong_ scarring the core of his very existence.

“Did you ever wonder,” asks Loki, an edge of hostility in his voice that genuinely surprises him, “what _you_ might be underneath all that perfect muscle? A dwarf, maybe?”

Thor’s face falls.

“You didn’t even think to ask them,” Loki says and it is not a question. “Of course you didn’t.” He snorts. He doesn’t want to lash out at his brother, he really doesn’t, no, he _loves_ Thor, he _does_ , but there is that part inside of him that wants to hurt Thor the same way he has been hurt. “You see, this right here, this is the difference between us. Even after coming to know that I am not an Odinson, you never even thought that the same might be true for you. Not the _Mighty Thor_ , no. You did not even question your heritage even after you learned that mine is a lie because you _belong_ here. You have always known that you do and you do not question it. Not even now.”

The look on his brother’s face is one of pure terror.

“If our positions had been reversed,” Loki concludes bitterly, “this would have been my first thought.”

Thor gulps. “I am sorry.”

“Slug it is,” Loki snaps.

“B-but,” stammers Thor. “N-none of this is my fault. I swear to you I had no knowl—”

“I didn’t say it was your _fault_ , now, did I?” Loki interrupts him in a soft growl that he doesn’t even recognize as his own voice.

“Then why are you being so _hostile_?” Thor yells. He springs to his feet at the sound of his brother’s foreign voice, anger flashing across his face, and Loki hears a soft thunder rumbling in the distance. “I spent five days by your bedside, never leaving your chambers because I _care_ for you, reading about your ancestors in those norndamned books of yours, trying to make you feel better and in turn you try to make me feel horrible!”

“Because you don’t understand!” Loki yells back because his inability to pull himself together angers and frightens him in equal parts and because he despises himself for the fact that Thor had to spend five days watching him in all his vulnerable glory.

“That is right, I don’t,” replies Thor, his wrath slowly burning down to a smoldering fire of anger and disappointment. “And how could I? How could I _possibly_ understand anything if you choose to fool me with your lies and your tricks instead of trusting me with what is on your mind as you once did?” He draws a deep breath. “I will not stand for these accusations,” Thor grumbles, turning away.

A shock jolts through Loki’s body. The sensation refills his depleted strength, allowing himself to prop himself up into a half-sitting position at last. “No, p-please,” he stammers, tears welling into his eyes. “I a-am sorry, brother. Puh-please, don’t g-go.”

A trembling breath rolls out of Thor’s mouth. “None of this is my fault,” he repeats, his back still towards him.

“I know,” Loki whispers and all the anger inside him withers. “I _know_. P-please just … don’t go.”

His hands fisted at his side, the veins sticking out, Thor draws in a deep breath and, eventually, he does turn around, his fingers slowly unclenching. “I know you are distraught,” he whispers, almost tonelessly, his rage shrinking until there is nothing left of it but a slight tremble in his voice. “But please, Loki, _please know_ that if there was anything I could do to lift the burden of that knowledge off of you, I would do it without hesitation.”

Loki waits a few beats, a thin smile creeping into his voice. “You could have some more mead brought to us or, even better, you could go and sneak some of Odin’s prized wine out of his secret cellar.”

“Should you really—” Thor begins but then interrupts himself when he sees Loki’s eyebrow hiking up. “I am _not_ mother, understood.” He nods his agreement and then takes his leave.

Loki exhales a deep breath as soon as the doors have clicked shut behind his brother. He tries to prop himself up further and, with a grunt, he manages to heave his leaden body into a sitting position against the headrest of his bed. His gaze sweeps the chambers in which he grew up in the belief that he was an Asgardian prince.

 _A lie, all of it_.

No, not all of it. Thor is still is brother even though … he glances down at his hand, flexing his fingers, before raising his arm, slowly, very slowly, bringing it closer to his face. His blue fingers are still long and slender but the veins on the back of his hand stick out more prominently than before. He lifts his hand all the way to his face and presses it against his lips. His skin is harder than he remembers it but it is not cold and it does feel like skin. It feels a lot more like skin than Thor’s or Frigga’s hands did when they touched him.

The truth of that sensation fills his eyes with new tears but, curiously, he also experiences a tremendous sense of relief because he _finally_ has answers to the questions that tormented him for so long. Because his silent and sometimes not so silent suspicions are _finally_ confirmed.

Loki ponders over this, trying for once to tap into his emotions and not suppress them, until Thor clatters back into the room carrying a barrel of wine upon which he balances a plate filled with meats, bread and fruits. “I suppose you are hungry, too?” he asks, placing the barrel down beside the bed.

He is not, not really, and the smell of the meal Thor brought him hooks into his nose and churns his stomach. “No, I think I’ll pass.”

Thor raises an eyebrow at him from where he crouches on the floor, tapping the barrel. “Alright,” he mumbles as he fills the mug from the nightstand. “I hope this isn’t going to kill you, brother,” he jests, handing it to him.

“It might,” Loki mumbles and then brings the mug to his lips with both of his weakened arms. He takes a sip, waiting for the sweet taste to explode in his mouth and run down his throat, trickling into his empty stomach, but this particular wine is oddly crude and stale. “Where did you get this from?” he complains. “This has no taste.”

“Yes, it does,” Thor objects after taking a large slurp of his own mug. “It tastes … _Oh_.”

Loki glares at him. “What?”

“I think it might be your Jötunn taste buds,” says Thor, almost apologetically motioning his head in the direction of the pile of books on the windowsill. “You know, according to those, your folk sustains themselves with ice, which apparently contains nutrients for you?”

Loki’s mind goes blank at this for an instant, the sensation the information awakes in his stomach eluding all attempts at verbalization.

“Maybe we can freeze the drink into icicles for you,” Thor suggests, a flicker of mischief in his eyes, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Despite everything, a laugh rises in Loki’s throat. “This is _not_ funny. Stop.”

“So that you can, I don’t know, suck on them, maybe?” Thor finishes, snorting out the laugh he tried to suppress.

“You really are the worst, brother,” Loki gasps but he is laughing too because this is all so incredibly absurd and isn’t it quite _hilarious_ how his life turned into a theater of the absurd within just _a few days_? “Y-you will spend the rest of your days as a slug for this. You will ascend to the throne in your slug form.”

“I suppose that is only fair,” Thor wheezes.

“It absolutely is,” Loki cackles and takes another sip of the wine that no longer tastes like wine. “Because even with this face, I will still be prettier than you in your fat, Jörmungandr-sized, slimy, squidgy slug form.”

They both laugh for a good long while and when their laughter subsides, Loki feels comfortable enough around his brother to carefully approach the truth of his heritage. “Did Odin tell you who my father is?” he asks, softly.

“He did not confirm it when I asked him but his tale made it sound as if you,” Thor pauses and takes a sip to steady himself, “were the son of Laufey.”

“Laufey?” Loki echoes. “Well, that means I am a prince after all, aren’t I?” He cackles. “So, at least the ‘both of you were born to be kings’ part of the Allfather’s narrative wasn’t entirely a lie.”

“I suppose not,” Thor presses out, his face twisting into a deep frown.

Loki hesitates before asking the next question because he has a sense of foreboding that the answer will be devastating. “How come he took me?”

Thor seems to think the same, for he replies with, “That I do not know,” avoiding his gaze.

“Brother,” Loki sighs and Thor shifts in the armchair he has sprawled into. “You are a terrible liar. Just tell me.”

“They abandoned you,” his brother whispers. “The Jötnar … they left you … to die.”

 _The Jötnar_. Thor has not called them Frost Giants once, Loki realizes then. He has never once said … but that does not even matter, does it, because _they left you to die_. “W-why? Be-because I …” His thoughts fail him for a moment. “Because I was too small?” He really doesn’t have the size of a giant, does he, no, and what if they cast him out because they didn’t want him because of _that?_ Because they thought he wouldn’t ever fit in with them either?

“We should got to Jötunheim to find out,” Thor announces all of a sudden, placing his mug on the nightstand. “Everything we know about your ancestors comes from these books, from father’s tales. We have no way of knowing that this is all there is to them. I mean, you turned out halfway decent, so maybe the Jötnar aren’t all bad.”

Loki chokes on a laugh.

“I mean it,” Thor insists. “As soon as your magic is restored, we should travel there. Visit them. See what they are really like. And even if it remains forbidden, I am sure you will find a way for us to slip past Heimdall’s gaze.”

“I could do more than that,” Loki whispers, thinking of the secret portal to his birth planet that he discovered with Amora. “But are you sure you would … break the Allfather’s laws?” He gulps. “For me?”

“Brother, I would do _everything_ for you,” Thor replies without a moment’s hesitation and Loki’s heart takes a tiny leap of joy. “I will admit that I find your company insufferable at times,” he continues in a half-jest. “You are terribly obnoxious, you have grown quite antagonistic, and your sharp humor exhausts me sometimes but none of these things are ever going to make me love you any less.”

A sob rises in Loki’s throat.

“Nor is this,” Thor continues, his outstretched palm indicating Loki’s skin. “You are my brother and you will remain my brother until the day Ragnarök befalls us and nothing could ever change the fact that I would do everything for you.”

“N-nothing?” Loki stammers.

“Nothing,” Thor confirms, his tongue lying a little heavy in his mouth. “Because, let’s face it, we wouldn’t make sense without each other.”

“Where did you pick up that line, uh?” Loki teases him. “No, don’t say anything, let me guess. This is Kvasir’s mead we are drinking here?”

Thor shakes his head, a half-grin playing upon his lips. “Kvasir’s mead is nothing but a myth.”

“Forgive me, brother, if I can’t seem to tell myth from truth these days,” Loki replies solemnly and the grin on Thor’s face dies.

“Do you really think I might be a dwarf?” he asks, hesitantly. “Or was that just …” His voice trails off.

Loki hesitates for a few beats before he replies. “No,” he whispers. “I have no doubt that you are Odin’s trueborn son. But speaking of dwarves,” he continues, his gaze flitting to one of his bookshelves, “I think there is something you can do to help me after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, did you think they were gonna fall out with each other? I did and I had a scenario in which Thor left and Loki did not stop him because he felt too weak and too proud. I wrote it because it felt so damn familiar but then I stopped myself because the great thing about this story is that nothing is yet lost and that their relationship, even though volatile, can still be saved and we've all learned from the movies that Asgardians can't communicate and that this is basically their downfall and the moment Thor tells Loki he can't possibly understand him because he won't let him in, he communicates something he never did in the movies when he just keeps silent after Loki shouts "I'm not your brother, I never was" at him during the fight in the observatory. I really wish we'd seen more of the love between them in the MCU but, hey, I guess that's what fics are for, right?
> 
> The next chapter will partly focus on Frigga and her journey to the Norns, so I hope to see you all soon xo


	7. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frigga travels to the cave of the Norns to seek answers and Thor figures out how Loki can even be awake before Loki does.

Frigga climbs down the roots of Yggdrasil that will lead her into the cave of the Norns and, for what must be the tenth time, she almost loses her footing on the bark that is wet and slippery from the moisture rising up from the well in the cave. She reaches for a crevice in the thick roots, trying to steady herself, and a trembling breath of frustration escapes her lips. To visit those who weave the threads of fate for all beings in the Nine Worlds is a strenuous journey from Asgard even when one is in the best of health, for their lair is the only place that the Aesir cannot access with the help of the Bifröst or through portals. No one should be encouraged to seek out the counsel of the Norns on a whim and the hardship the Gods have to take upon themselves to arrive there ensures that the journey is not taken unless dire hardship demands it.

The Queen herself has never traveled to the Norn cave before and she feels the strain of the voyage in every fiber of her being because she is not in the best of health. Her attempts to determine the origin of the black magic the Enchantress used to poison her youngest son have almost drained her mental strength and she is beginning to suspect that the crystal containing the dark magic she has been carrying with her for the past three days is depleting her physical strength. It is not poisoning her as it poisoned Loki but having been subjected to its black energy is taking its toll nonetheless.

Her head is dull and aching. Her vision is fuzzy at the edges. Her knees are weak.

She feels ill prepared descending into the cave but she knows that she must carry on. That she owes it to her son not to return home without an answer. Not that anyone ever feels prepared for a visit of such significance, she muses, for the Norns instill such awe in even the strongest of the Gods that Odin himself dared to travel here only once during his reign as Allfather, to ask the Norns’ advice concerning another truth that she helped him conceal by manipulating Asgard’s memory with her sorcery, and his body was still trembling upon his return to the palace.

That recollection, along with the realization of what their secrecy did to Loki’s mental wellbeing, sits heavy on her chest. Until a few days ago, Frigga has always obeyed her husband’s and king’s commands in the firm belief that he meant to _protect_ his children and keep them out of harm’s way. She still doesn’t doubt that Odin loves all of them, in his own distant manner that comes from having to watch over everything that transpires across Nine Realms, but Thor has helped her see that, sometimes, love such as this alone is not enough. Especially not when it prompted her to withhold a truth from Loki that she knew he would have desired just because she was afraid to lose his trust and _his love_. It wasn’t until Thor blatantly asked Odin who he was to decide what mattered and did not matter _to Loki_ that Frigga realized she had done harm too, even if she had acted out of what she thought of as love. Yet, that kind of love, _her_ kind of love, is not what Loki needs after the revelation because no amount of love she has for Loki will ever restore the relationship they had before the painful truth of his lineage came to light in such a way. No, what her youngest needs at this moment is not the love of a mother who lied to him but the boisterous, unconditional, unprejudiced love of a brother that Thor carries inside of him and that allows him to be befriend the unlikeliest of creatures with a bewildering ease.

Frigga knows that Loki now needs Thor more than he needs her and the knowledge gnaws at the core of her existence but, despite the sorrows thrashing in her chest, her lips curl into a smile when she tries to bear in mind how protective Thor has always been of his little brother. She still fondly remembers the first time Thor laid eyes upon him, remembers how his small face lit up with a giant smile when he stretched out his little hand and touched Loki’s cheek, marveling at its warmth and promising his baby brother, in a solemn whisper, to keep him safe.

And he has abided by that promise all his life. Thor has always kept Loki safe.

Her sons could not possibly be more different and, yes, they fight constantly, especially now that Loki has grown increasingly suspicious of his identity and his place in the world and sometimes takes it out on Thor, which Thor does not understand because he is too young to imagine how life could possibly be difficult for anyone. Yet, despite all the fighting and despite all the insults flying back and forth between them, despite Loki’s tricks and Thor’s explosive temper, Thor has always tried to keep Loki safe. He has always looked out for him, always protected him from anyone who deliberately or unconsciously meant him harm.

Anyone.

Including Odin.

Including _herself_.

Frigga marvels at how much Thor has emotionally matured in the past years without her truly noticing and she feels a pain of regret stabbing into her chest when she realizes that she has underestimated her eldest. Thor is not usually the one to rely on his wit but his reaction to Loki’s Jötunn heritage has proven to her that he is very smart and very capable of handling emotionally challenging situations in ways she didn’t catch on to before. She knows it is unfair to wish for this because her firstborn should not carry such a responsibility but, still, she prays to Thor in silence. _Please, my love, ensure that the revelation does not tip Loki’s mind over the edge_. _You are the only one who can do that_. _Right now, you are the only one who can make him feel genuinely loved_. _Please do not fail him as we did_.

As if some higher power decides to punish the Queen of Asgard for such an atrocious thought, she once more slips on the wet bark, finally losing her footing and sliding down the thick root. A hawk cries out somewhere in the branches of Yggdrasil above her and then swoops down, flapping its enormous wings. She blindly tries to find another crevice in the bark, trying to decelerate her fall, trying to focus her energies at the same time, but the hawk is right next to her now, its piercing gaze meeting hers for the fraction of a second before it snatches the little sachet she has tied to her leather belt away with its beak and then takes wing again with an almost mocking screech.

Frigga attempts to shapeshift into a bird herself on impulse because that guise would allow her to chase after the hawk that just stole from her the black crystal in which Loki’s magic is stored but she is still sliding down the slippery roots of Yggdrasil, trying to regain her footing and there does not seem to be a crevice left in the bark for her hands to hook into and her burned-out glamour stubbornly refuses to comply with her silent demands, and she is sliding, _sliding, sliding, sliding_ , ever further down, until she lands feet first on the hard rock soil of the Norn cave, splintering both of her ankles upon the impact.

“We have a visitor,” announces Urᵭr, one of the three main fate weavers, in a high-pitched voice that bounces off the walls of stone, creating an eerie echo.

_We have a visitor … ave a visitor … visitor … isitor …  
_

* * *

“Is this what I think it is?” Thor exclaims as he fishes a little dark-brown leather pouch out of the treasure chest that Loki has kept hidden behind a row of books. He holds the pouch up by its drawstring, dangling it in front of his face, but there is no doubt really, is there, for his brother has prefaced his imperative to retrieve the chest with the words, “Speaking of dwarves.”

A smirk ghosts Loki’s dark blue lips.

“You possess one of Eitri’s pouches?” Thor continues, awe overwhelming him. “How did you come by this?”

“That doesn’t matter, does it?” Loki asks on a shrug, taking another sip of the wine he claimed to be so tasteless.

“Yes, it does,” Thor replies. “Does mother know you have this?”

Loki bursts out in a cackling laugh, almost spluttering his drink.

“Granted, that last question was rather foolish,” Thor admits. “But honestly, _where_ did you find this? I am willing to help you but I am expecting you to trust me.” He locks eyes with his brother, flashing him a challenging smirk. “We cannot go on as we did before.”

“Fine.” Loki blows out a breath. “I stole it.”

Thor’s jaw drops. “From whom?”

“From the King of Alfheim,” Loki admits. “The prince bragged about it being in his father’s possession after a few sips of mead too many at the feast held after the last diplomatic reception.”

Thor grimaces at the memory of _that_ reception because he is certain that none of the attendees will ever forget the glorious sight of the God of Thunder suddenly wearing a flowing white bridal gown in their midst. _It looked so real_ , the Lady Sif told him later, barely containing her laughter. _Loki is truly mastering the art of sorcery_. _You even had flowers in your hair_. **_Pink_** _flowers_. That shenanigan enraged the God of Thunder to such an extent that he did not speak a word to his little brother for four whole days, punishing him with silence because silence is what unsettles Loki the most. But thinking of the incident now, while simultaneously seeing his brother in his Jötunn form, chained to his bed, confronted with his own vulnerability, his otherness, he can’t be angry anymore, not even a little.

No, instead of anger, a sense of dread is submerging him once more, for the pouch that he is holding is one of five leather pouches that Eitri once crafted at Bor’s command and that allow its holder to soak up all the magic in the vicinity to store it and later unleash it for all kinds of purposes. After his father’s death, Odin grew increasingly wary of such power until he forbade their use and demanded all five of them to be found and stored in the vault of Asgard. Four of them have been found long ago. The location of the last has been a mystery to this day. And isn’t it quite typical that his mischievous little brother is the one who has stumbled upon it after all this time? Well, stumbled upon it might be a little too generous an expression. “So you just traveled to Alfheim and _stole_ it from them?” Thor asks, the questions tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop them. “How did you do that? And why? And why didn’t you hand it to father? You _know_ how dangerous these are.”

“I thought it might be useful to have in the future and, lo and behold, it is becoming quite useful in this very moment,” Loki replies with a self-satisfied grin, ignoring the rest of Thor’s questions entirely.

“Wh-why, what do you want me to do?” Thor asks.

Loki draws a sharp breath before he replies. “I want you to take it to the Hall of Yggdrasil, soak up a little of the World Tree’s magic and bring the pouch back to me so that I can absorb it to restore my strength.”

“ _A little_ of the World Tree’s magic?” Thor echoes. “You must be insane, brother. I can’t possibly open this pouch in the Hall of Yggdrasil. What if _all_ of its magic streams into that pouch? What if the pouch is going to tear open or Asgard is going to implode? This is impossible.”

“You just have to be gentle,” Loki tells him. “Just open it a tiny little bit and then close it again as soon as you felt some of it stream into the pouch.”

“Gentle,” Thor repeats, snorting the word out. “You very well know that being _gentle_ is not among those characteristics I excel at. What makes you think I could close it again even if I wanted to? We can’t risk that.”

“Do you actually remember what you said to me only moments ago?” Loki asks, a faint shimmer enveloping him, and the Thundergod’s jaw drops when the shimmer turns into a semi-translucent, well, almost translucent illusion of his own face that overlays the facial features of his brother. “Nothing could ever change the fact that I would do everything for you,” Loki repeats in Thor’s voice. “I am beginning to think we have a different understanding of the scope of _everything_ ,” he adds, his voice transforming back into his own.

“What do you need Yggdrasil’s magic for, anyway?” Thor asks, the realization suddenly clattering into his mind with the force of a cannon ball. _I have sustained the prince’s body with healing glamour_. _It will not replenish his strength but it will keep him alive_. “You are using magic right now.”

“What?” Loki asks back, his confusion manifesting itself as a blank stare. “I am not using magic? What are you talking about?”

“Alright, that’s enough wine for you, little brother,” Thor decides and snatches the mug out of Loki’s hands.

“Hey,” Loki complains. “Give that _back_.”

“What do you know about healing glamour?” Thor asks, holding the mug out of his reach and feeling a childish and possibly very misplaced satisfaction in response to Loki’s feeble attempts to reach for the mug.

Loki’s expression transforms into a question mark. “What? _Why_?”

Thor smirks, waiting for the moment he is going to be able to rub it in his smart little brother’s face that he has figured something out before him. “Just answer the question.”

Loki breathes out his annoyance in an overdramatic sigh. “Healing Seiᵭr is not like other types of magic. It is … Let me just think of how to explain this to someone as dense as you,” he says and Thor does not even bother with hiding the smirk that is widening across his face, tugging at his lips. “It is a type of fuel that preserves you, ensuring that your bodily functions will not fail, but its name is quite misleading, for healing glamour cannot truly _heal_ you unless it coalesces with …” His mouth gapes open as the realization trickles into his consciousness. “It will only heal you when it taps into the magic you already possess. It can’t … The flame of Asgard,” Loki continues, his eyes widening as the wheels of his mind finally begin to turn again at a dazzling speed. “It’s a spark of Yggdrasil’s magic in its pure, unharnessed form,” he whispers and then delivers an explanation for what Thor has figured out even though he doesn’t quite understand the workings behind it. “He did not _transform_ me into an Aesir. He must have hid my true form beneath the mightiest glamour in all the Realms we have access to and then layered the spell turning me Asgardian _over_ it.”

“Which means that the barrier of magic concealing your Jötunn form was so strong that whatever poison Amora gave you did not penetrate it,” Thor replies, still holding the mug too high for Loki to reach it.

“The Jötunn magic I was born with, the magic that Odin concealed, was not infested, no, but the barrier, as you call it, _was_. Otherwise Odin wouldn’t have had to lift that spell as well but still I am using my natural powers right now,” Loki concludes, his lips standing slightly open until he speaks again. “The ones I never even knew I had. That’s why I am even _awake_!”

“Someone as dense as me, huh?” Thor echoes, playfully punching Loki’s arm with a little more force than he has intended. “ _I_ thought of that before you did!”

“And you won’t ever let me forget that, will you?” Loki grumbles, his face twisting into a grimace, and the God of Thunder cannot tell whether it does so because he is in physical pain or because he is humiliated.

“Not _ever_ ,” Thor confirms, handing the mug back to his little brother with one hand and petting his head with the other. “But well done. You passed the test.”

“Stop it,” Loki hisses and then takes a long drink, keeping the sweet liquid in his mouth before swallowing it, pausing thoughtfully. “But you’re right,” he says eventually. “Forget Yggdrasil. I need sustenance.” His eyes linger on the mug in his hands for a moment. “Real sustenance.” He glances up at Thor, a flicker of determination in his blood-red eyes. “I am afraid you’ll have to fetch me some ice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been listening to the "Sons of Odin" soundtrack from the first Thor movie on repeat for the past two hours while editing this and I don't know why but this song always stirs up the strongest Brodinson feels in my chest ♥ 
> 
> If you want to read more about Thor meeting his baby brother for the first time, check out my oneshot "No harm shall ever come to you" that explores Frigga's POV when Odin brings Loki to Asgard after the last great war he waged against Jötunheim. And the pouches of Eitri also play a role in my story "Brothers in Arms", which I am determined to continue one day (half of the next chapter is written already but I am still unsure about the plot).
> 
> But overall, I can't shake off the feeling that this story lacks something, so please leave me a comment telling me what it might be because I have no idea. Thank you in advance and much love to y'all xoxo


	8. Counsel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frigga makes an interesting discovery in the Norn cave and Loki battles his inner demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support. It is, as always, greatly appreciated ♥

“Our visitor has arrived,” announces Urᵭr and her sisters chitter in excitement, the sounds leaving their mouths bouncing off the walls of the cave in an eerie echo once more. The air in the dark cave is so cold that a shiver tears through her body. Moisture hangs in the air, dampening her clothes and hair almost instantly. The atmosphere is oppressive, sucking the air out of her lungs. The Norns themselves are three shapes sitting around a well that is made of cobbled stone and that, covered with moss and grime, looks old and dirty but the surface of the water in the well is as smooth and pristine as polished glass, a distant light shimmering from deep within it.

The light from which once sprung all life in the Nine Realms.

The shapes that are the Norns are wearing dark, hooded cloaks that seem to be one mass of flowing fabric and their faces are gaunt and of a pale turquoise, their eyes black with a sliver of white in them instead of irises and, when Frigga looks closer, it appears that their cloaks are one with the well too. They are not corporeal either, not fully at least, for their form seems to be pulsating between the corporeal and the translucent with every blink of her eye, their existence meant to baffle even the Gods. One of them, Verᵭandi, if the depictions in the old books are to be trusted, is spinning a thread from the water, white sparks erupting around her hands and rising up into the air.

Frigga rises to her feet, silently chanting a healing spell to mend her fractured ankles in the hope that her burned-down glamour will allow her this little mercy, and then bows before them. “Esteemed Norns, I have come to seek—”

Skuld, the third of the sisters, raises her hand and brushes a turquoise, seemingly fleshless finger against her dark lips to silence her before she turns her attention to an entanglement of thick root, behind which Frigga glimpses a flash of gold. “You may step out now,” the Norn says.

The Queen’s lips part in surprise when an all too familiar shape emerges from the shadows, searching for her gaze, stupefied with amazement.

“Odin,” she whispers, her hands clutching her chest as if to take her heart in her hand when a wave of existential dread floods through her. “W-what … Why are _you_ here?”

“Heimdall cannot see her,” replies the Allfather in a gruff voice as he crosses the distance between them in three large strides. He takes her hands in his and gives them a squeeze that is meant to be reassuring but does very little to mask the worry flickering in his seeing eye. “Amora has shrouded herself from the gatekeeper’s gaze.”

“I have not been fortunate either,” Frigga whispers, the failure of her unsuccessful attempts to determine the origin of dark Seiᵭr and her inability to guard the magic of her son sitting on her chest like a boulder. “And I fear she might have stolen the crystal containing Loki’s magic,” she mumbles, for the animal that attacked her only moments ago was _no ordinary hawk_ , _no_ , she thinks, her mind swiftly piecing the puzzle together, _no, that was most certainly Amora_ , she is quite sure of that, because she has never been quite able to shake off the feeling that she was being followed ever since she left Asgard. “I was unable to defend it.”

“The two of us, outwitted by that young thing,” Odin snarls, pounding Gúngnir onto the rock in a sudden flash of hot, white anger, shaking the pebble on the ground and startling the surface of the well. “Tell us,” he demands in an angry growl, turning his attention to the fate weavers, “how this is possible. What bestowed upon the Enchantress such powers?”

* * *

“And now?” asks Thor, eyes alight with joy. His brother’s facial expression reminds Loki of the Midgardian animal that the mortals call dog and that communicates its excitement through extensive tail wagging. He is quite certain that, had the God of Thunder had a tail, he would be wagging it at this very moment. Not that Loki does not feel a tingle of excitement as well. Ingesting the ice Thor has brought to his chambers from the part of Midgard where the cold never recedes even when the rest of their world blossoms into summer has indeed fueled his strength, finally allowing him to swing his legs out of the bed he has been chained to for the past days. Ingesting the ice is also fueling his mental strength and he is beginning to understand that none of the spells he practiced in the past will be lost to him because wielding magic is learning how to manipulate energetic impulses drawn from other dimensions to disrupt the code programing the current reality. Luckily, everything he learned about sorcery is still in his mental possession.

Well, luckily for _him_.

Loki smirks at his brother. “Retribution,” he says and flicks his fingers.

“Nooooooo!” Thor yells as brownish-red slime spreads across his skin and he begins to shrink in size. “Don’t,” he begs until his words trail off. “Loki, _please_ , don’t! _Stop_ … N-n-no no …”

Loki glances down at his brother, whose slug head barely reaches his hips and erupts into a gleeful, self-satisfied chuckle. “You brought this one upon yourself with your inconsiderate ice jokes.” Thor opens his slug mouth, rubbery slime lips moving soundlessly. “Uh-uh. Slugs can’t speak.” He grabs his chest in mock sympathy. “I’m truly inconsolable. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he says, flitting a nervous glance towards the door leading to his bath, “I need to … refresh myself.”

Loki turns away from Thor, who moves with a faint _squish_ - _squash_ sound that is undoubtedly going to leave a slimy trail on the floor tiles but that will be worth it, will it not, _oh yes_ , and softly pushes the door to his bath open. The room has not changed, of course it hasn’t, why would it, but somehow Loki expected the large bathtub and the sink to look different for _it can’t be only **you** who is no longer the same_. The door clicks shut behind him and the familiar sight unsettles him because … He doesn’t even know why exactly, except for maybe the spiteful voice that arises from the cesspit beneath his consciousness into which he has banished his self-destructive, self-rejecting thoughts; _that_ spiteful voice telling him that all of this is a lie. That his existence is a lie. That he is a Frost Giant runt that doesn’t deserve the chambers of an Aesir prince.

Loki tries to smother the thought but his mind is drawn to its fervor as a moth is drawn to a flame.

 _They are brutish and unruly beasts that know no warmth_. _They abandoned you_. _They left you to die_. _Midget_. _They didn’t want you_. _Runt_. _Mutt_. _They are beasts_. _They cast you out_. _They left you to die_. _They left you to die_. _They_. _Left_. _You_. _To_. _Die_. _TO DIE_. _No one wants you_ , _no one_.

“Stop it,” Loki whispers because he knows that the voice is lying.

 _None of these things are ever going to make me love you any less_. _You are my brother and you will remain my brother until the day Ragnarök befalls us_.

Loki steps forth and forces himself to look at his Jötunn face in the mirror. He knows what he is going to see because he saw the blue face with its silver markings and its blood-red eyes before but that knowledge does little to shield him from the shockwave of repulsion exploding in his chest. He sucks in a shaky breath, trying to soothe himself, but the air does not calm him because even though he always suspected that he was not like the other Asgardians, not in a million years would he have expected his otherness to wear such _a horrid visage_.

He steps even closer, raising his hand, stretching it out towards the mirror’s surface, and recoils when his palm touches that of his reflection. _This is you_ , his accursed inner voice tells him in a grotesque snarl. _Unworthy runt_. _This is what you are_. _This is how you look_. _This is you_. _Putrid **monster**_.

Loki casts a simulacrum of the Aesir face he has been wearing for centuries over his Frost Giant skin almost on impulse because, while having learned to change the form of others, he has not yet mastered the art of shapeshifting. Unfortunately, the sight does not calm him either because it is a lie, isn’t it, _yes_ , _everything is a lie_ , **_everything_** , _oh_ _yes_ , that face is as much of a lie as the love Odin claimed to have for him because there is no way in Hel the Allfather could bring himself to ever _truly_ love a Frost Giant.

 _You are not like them, Loki_. _I can sense it in you_. _Do you not see that they are afraid of you? Do you not see that your mother is merely pretending to teach you because she is scared of the power that slumbers within you? Do you not see that, if you were to discover your true potential, they would all tremble before you?_

The illusion in the mirror vanishes when a single thought clatters into Loki’s mind.

_How did Amora know?_

Anger sears through him, almost blinding him.

 _That scheming little quim_.

Loki turns on the faucet of the sink to splash water into his face out of habit but as soon as his hands touch the spurt, he feels the erratic pulse of raw, untamed magic in his fingertips and, before his mind has the time to grasp the implications behind the sensation, the water crystallizes into solid ice upon his touch. He mutters a string of expletives under his breath and flees the bathroom, enraged by the realization that he now possesses powers he will have to learn to control from scratch.

Slug-Thor has made his way to the doors of Loki’s chambers and the sight of his brother in a state of utter helplessness instills in him at least some minimal degree of satisfaction. Yet, he knows deep inside of him how uncalled for the sensation is because this mess is not his gullible, good-hearted twerp of a brother’s fault. Loki blows out a breath and flicks his fingers, dissipating the spell.

“I am going to kill you,” Thor grumbles as soon as he has vocal cords again.

“Yeah, well, _I_ am going to look for Amora,” Loki retorts, despising himself for the slight tremble in his voice.

“Alone?” Thor asks, genuine worry twisting his features when he becomes aware of Loki’s brittle state of mind. “I am coming with you, of course,” he announces forcefully.

“You don’t have to,” Loki growls, snatching the pouch from the armchair where the God of Thunder has so mindlessly tossed it upon the accursed book about accursed Jötunn magic.

“Don’t be foolish, brother,” Thor replies and Loki hates how the moniker makes him feel undeserving of the Aesir life given to him once more. “Father has been looking for her for five days. If he hasn’t returned by now—”

“He clearly isn’t doing an all too marvelous job with tracking her down,” Loki snaps.

“I was going to say, ‘Who knows in which hel-mouth she is lurking?’ but …” Thor swallows audibly. “Do you _know_ where she is?”

Loki shakes his head. “No,” he whispers in defeat. “But I might have a fairly good idea where to start looking.”

* * *

“Did you not hear me?” Odin repeats and Frigga is quite certain that the anger dripping from her husband’s every word will not aid their quest for knowledge. The Norns chitter, exchanging glances, their shapes fluttering in and out of translucence once more, their cloaks wafting about them even though there is no breeze. “You rule the destiny of us all! Tell me why you would weave such a thread of fate for my son!”

For the fraction of a moment, the Queen is convinced Odin will level Gúngnir at the Norns and she tugs at his arm, holding him back. “Please,” she urges the beings before her in a solemn whisper, “we wish to help him.”

“The prince will help himself,” says Urᵭr.

“ _Where_ dwells the Enchantress?” Odin bellows before Frigga even has a chance to respond. “What gave her the powers she possesses?”

“Amora dwells outside the Realms,” says Verᵭandi and the thread she is weaving begins to glow brighter as her words echo through the darkness cold and damp. “As does the Seiᵭr that poisoned the prince.”

“What did you mean when you said Loki will help himself?” Frigga asks before Odin has a chance to bark at them once more.

“His destiny is no longer in your hands,” says Skuld in a voice that instills a sense of terror and foreboding in the heart of the Queen before the Norn turns to Odin. “You sought our counsel eons past, Allfather, about your firstborn child, and it grieves us to see that you have not yet abandoned your old ways.”

A trembling breath slips past the Queen’s lips because she has always feared the consequences of manipulating Asgard’s memory to help her husband conceal a truth that would later make the Aesir think of Thor as the Allfather’s firstborn child. She feared that those consequences would come back to haunt her one day but she complied anyway, perhaps out of love, perhaps out of naivety, and now the Norns are punishing her for her misdeeds past and present.

“I have,” replies Odin but the tremor in his voice belies the conviction displayed on his face. “I have tried to protect him from the same destiny. I have tried to help him.”

“Your help is not what he needs, Allfather,” says Skuld.

“The prince will help himself,” repeats Urᵭr. “He will help himself with the aid of whom he thinks of as his brother.”

“They are departing Asgard as we speak,” says Verᵭandi and a sense of urgency slams into Frigga, knocking the breath out of her lungs.

“They will travel to the Svartur and they will face grave dangers,” says Skuld and Frigga’s heart stops beating in her chest for a moment because last she saw him, Loki was in no condition to _travel_ anywhere and, even if she has underestimated Thor’s emotional maturity, they are children still, the both of them, they are young and reckless and impulsive and inexperienced and the Svartur …

 _The Svartur_.

“How can we aid our sons?” pleads Odin, his wrath suddenly extinguished at the mention of _that_ name.

“You must not think of aid in the way you thought of it before,” counsels Urᵭr and with that, the Norns lapse into silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> \- Different sources tell us different things about the Norns in Norse mythology (some mentioning that there are several) but most sources agree that, like e.g. in Greek mythology, there are three main ones, the names of whom are Urᵭ, Verᵭandi and Skuld, their names corresponding to "what once was", "what is coming into being" and "what shall be". I tried to depict them accordingly. In describing their appearance, I drew a little inspiration form the Dísir, who appeared in the comics and who once were Valkyries until Bor cursed them and cast their spirits from the Nine Realms only for Loki to become suspectible to their presence much later and using them for one of his schemes. I have also never been quite able to dispel the image of the Fates that appear in Disney's "Hercules" from my mind when thinking about the Norns, so that also played a role. Especially since the mythologies, once you study them, are eerily similar to each other, proving that humans no matter their cultural background are all yearning to explain to themsevles the same baffling things. I also made a sketch of the Norns how I picture them but I haven't yet figured out how to post images on this site. If anyone is willing to help me, I might be able to post it later :)  
> \- The Svartur is a thing I mostly made up, even though it is somewhat inspired by stuff appearing in Doctor Strange, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the comics.   
> \- That said, stay tuned xoxo


	9. Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki are acting like the Asgardian equivalent of unruly teenagers who get drunk while their parents are out of the house and then go out on an adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that they are drunk. They can take much more than we can. But they are still young and dumb and reckless. Yay! But Thor is a good bro and he really tries. Maybe even a bit too hard.

“You don’t have to conceal it,” Thor says softly when he sees his brother reach for the ring that will restore his Aesir illusion once their Asgardian battle armor has materialized around them in whirls of bright green and white-blue. When he sees the pain twisting his little brother’s face.

Loki huffs a bitter laugh. “Don’t be a fool! The alternative is opening the door with this face and taking the risk of an Einherjar’s spear impaling me before I take the first step outside. That’s truly a tremendous idea. Besides, I do not think the King would appreciate the dirty family secret leaving the walls of these chambers.” His head snaps up then, a memory flashing through his eyes. “The healers … From what you told me, they saw.”

Thor swallows. “They did but … but father commanded mother to …” The words catch in his throat. “She made them forget.”

Another laugh, thin and brittle. “See?” Loki asks in a broken, almost defeated whisper. “They will never let me wear _this_ face in public.”

“That isn’t true,” Thor protests. “Mother said that now the truth has been unearthed—”

“She is not _my_ mother, now, is she?” Loki bellows and Thor startles, a menacing silence creeping over them as his little brother’s blue fingers curl around the ring. “Don’t tell me that you truly think,” continues Loki, his voice so quiet that Thor has to strain his ears to catch his brother’s words, “that I could just walk out of these chambers with _this_ face without being immediately attacked.”

“That’s not what I meant,” says Thor and he hates himself for how much his voice shakes. “I was merely trying to …”

Loki raises an eyebrow at him that quickens the rate of his heart.

“You’re speaking of _this_ face,” Thor quietly begins anew, relying on his honesty that has been able to pierce through his brother emotional defenses most times in the past. “I will admit that I was shocked to see it at first and those red eyes are terrifying, really terrifying. But the more I am thinking about it, the more I am _looking_ at you, the more I realize that your Asgardian eyes were terrifying as well. There was this glint of knowledge and mischief in them that terrified me because I never knew what new scheme you were concocting against me and, truth be told, for some reason I cannot yet fathom, those red eyes look more honest to me. More real. More you.”

Loki’s dark-blue lips part in surprise.

“And that skin,” Thor continues, his hand traveling to his brother’s neck almost on impulse, gently squeezing the thick Jötunn skin in his fingers, “that blue, I don’t know, it suits you. It’s not …” His fingers search for the silver markings on his brother’s cheek but Loki slaps his hand away.

“I apologize that I do not possess your eloquence,” Thor says softly, “but, I suppose, what I was trying to say earlier is that I would hate it if you felt like you had to conceal your face because you think it’s hideous. It is not. I am looking at you now and I … You have always been different, yes. But being different does not equal being less. You have never been like the rest of us and it is only fitting that you don’t look like the rest of us. You don’t have to hide that.”

“Yes, I do. We both know that,” Loki replies in a clipped tone, slipping the ring onto his finger, his Aesir appearance enveloping him. “Because the Frost Giants are Asgard’s archenemy and you are only lying to me to make me feel better.”

“Am I?” Thor asks, reaching for his brother’s upper arm. “You always claim that you can tell when I am lying to you, don’t you?” He waits until Loki’s gaze is locked in his. “So tell me, brother, am I lying to you when I say that I find your Jötunn form”—he almost chokes on the word because it seems _so_ _inappropriate_ for their relationship as brothers while simultaneously being _so_ _true_ —“rather beautiful?”

Loki snorts.

“Am I?” Thor asks again, squeezing his brother’s arm.

“You’re not,” Loki concedes quietly, “but I don’t know what you’re doing either because the affection you showered me with for the past days is enough to last a lifetime and, to be perfectly frank, you are making me very uncomfortable.”

Thor pulls his hand away immediately, holding up both of his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I did not mean to. I think I was just … I have the feeling that we are finally really close again and I just felt the need to—”

“Touch me?” Loki asks, his eyebrows almost at his hairline.

“Well, spoken out loud, it does sound rather uncanny,” Thor stammers, embarrassment heating his neck and cheeks as Loki nods a little too enthusiastically. The God of Thunder harrumphs. “So, where are we going?”

“You will see,” his brother says as they leave the chambers, walking through the golden hallways of Glaðsheim in silence because Loki seems to be planning their move in the maze of his mind and Thor does not dare to speak lest he make a fool of himself once more.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Loki asks when they have almost reached the main doors.

Thor ponders the question but nothing comes to him, so he merely shrugs his answer.

“We are going to be leaving,” Loki elaborates, an air of arrogance swirling around him. “The King and Queen are currently traveling as well. Don’t you think we should inform the counsel that the entire Royal Family is going to be absent for a while?” he asks and then laughs with glee when Thor’s jaw falls. “You are truly making a splendid figure as Asgard’s crown prince.”

“I suppose they informed the counsel already,” Thor defends himself. “I received no order to tend to the kingdom while they are gone. Mother only asked me to take care of you, which I am.”

Loki smiles at him in response. “Very well, then.”

* * *

“What are we looking for?” asks Thor as soon as they have ventured into the forest.

“A portal,” replies Loki.

“A portal to where?” Thor asks.

“You will see.”

“Wait, you have the knowledge to detect portals?” Thor continues, awe flooding through him once more, causing a string of questions to tumble off his tongue. “You can world-walk without having to use the Bifröst? For how long have you been able to do this? Is that how you traveled to Alfheim to steal the pouch? And what are you planning to do with this accursed thing anyway?”

A quiet, self-satisfied laugh slips past Loki’s lips. “I am not quite sure which question you want me to answer first.”

“Answer them in order,” Thor demands.

Loki flashes him a smirk. “Yes, I do. Yes, I can. I have known for a few months now. Yes, that is how I traveled to Alfheim and, well, I don’t quite know yet but maybe I will steal her magic the same way she attempted to steal mine.”

“B-but mother said that we die if we lose our magic,” Thor stammers.

“So?” Loki asks, his expression hardening. “If she showed no concern for my life, why would I show concern for hers? She is very powerful and, by all accounts, she is a foe of Asgard and the Realms would be glad to be rid of her.”

Thor gulps, his chest constricting. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t know, am I?” Loki asks back, his gaze meeting that of his older brother, his lips quirking as he slips off the ring and the blue of his Jötunn form seeps into his fingertips like dye dispersing in water, cascading down across his fingers and palms until it has reached his face, transforming his ivory skin into that rich, vibrant sapphire-blue. “Can’t you see the answer in my honest Frost Giant eyes?”

He can and relief floods through him as Loki slips the ring into an invisible pocket in his armor.

“Why do you want to find her?” Thor asks.

“She knew,” Loki replies after a beat. “She sensed the Jötunn magic in me. Now, I don’t know if she knew it was Jötunn but still she sensed something stirring inside of me that was concealed even from my own senses, susceptible to magic as they are, and I want to know how.”

“What was the true nature of your relationship?” Thor continues carefully because he is quite certain that his brother will not overly enjoy such a conversation. “Were you … in love?”

“I was not,” Loki surprises him. “I prefer the male physique over that of a female and, even though I found her somewhat attractive, I suppose it was mostly the attention she lavished on me that made her appear so and that drew me to her. I cannot tell if _she_ was ever in love, however. She seemed to be, at least at first, and I indulged because …” He pauses, lost in thought for a moment. “I think it was nice to be the center of someone’s attention for once,” Loki continues and something inside Thor crumbles because he has never fully realized before that _he_ is generally drawing all the attention towards himself and away from his little brother whenever he makes an entrance. “But she took it too far. She became too obsessed with me, with my magic. Too obsessed with …” His words trail off as his mind latches onto a thought.

“Why do you think she was so intrigued by your magic?” asks Thor. “Is Jötunn magic that much more powerful than what they can teach you here on Asgard?”

Loki shrugs his lack of knowledge. “After combing through my books while I slept, I dare say your knowledge about Jötunn magic exceeds mine at this point.” Thor tries to remember if there was any information in those books that could have explained Amora’s fascination with Loki’s magic but he draws a complete blank. “But I don’t think it was the Jötunn magic itself. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced she was more intrigued by _how_ I wield magic.”

“Why?”

Loki pauses, his teeth pulling at his dark-blue lips. “She had this idea that she was to become the most powerful sorceress in all the Realms and beyond. She wanted me to join her in this quest and did her very best to convince me that the Queen was afraid of the true power of my Seiᵭr and that she would never teach me all there is to know. That I could become more powerful when I study magic on my own. Well, with her.” He pauses, his attention turned towards his own thoughts. “I suppose when she realized that I would not take her side, she ensured I wouldn’t ever be her enemy.”

“Or tried to ensure, anyway.” Loki’s head lowers. “It’s just so very frustrating that,” he continues in a low whisper, “that she was right about some things.”

“She might have been right about this too,” Thor suddenly remembers and Loki’s eyebrows perk up at those words. “Mother mentioned something to this effect. She said father did not want to face it but your magic could not be tamed _even if_ … And then she interrupted herself because, well, apparently concealing truths is what everyone in this family does except for me.” He grimaces at the realization.

Loki huffs a laugh as his mind connects the dots with its usual speed. “So, let us take a quick inventory, yes? I am neither allowed to know who I truly am nor am I allowed to use my magic unrestrictedly even though the primitive nature of physical combat bores me to tears and if Asgard is ever besieged, I would be of much more use wielding sorcery than a blade? In your esteemed opinion, _Son of Odin_ ,” he asks in a soft growl, “are my slights imagined?”

Thor winces at the sound of his brother’s voice. “They don’t appear to be.”

“Thank you,” Loki replies in a genuine tone and they walk on in a rather stifling silence until he announces that he found the portal with a flicker of pride lighting up his crimson eyes once more, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Now all we need is a power source.” He diverts his attention from the soft shimmer in the air his touch has made visible and locks eyes with him. “Care to summon some lightning, brother?”

* * *

All the while, Frigga is climbing up the thick, slick roots of the World Ash with her husband, her lungs burning, exhaustion weighing on her limbs and her mind even though, now that the crystal has been out of her reach a while ago, she feels her strength slowly returning. This, however, pains her even more because the ceasing of her suffering violates a mother’s instinct to take what pain she can away from her child.

Her child that, according to the Norns, is no longer _in need_ of her help.

The Queen tries to take comfort in this, for it means that Loki is far stronger than she suspected and that her nurture may have instilled enough confidence in him to not succumb to his self-loathing in the face of such a revelation. Despite her efforts to soothe herself, her thoughts quicken into a brisk whirlwind of worry and spiral around her mind, dizzying her, because Loki’s body cannot have possibly recovered enough on healing glamour alone to journey further than his bath. And the spark of Jötunn magic he was born with has been concealed under the spell of the Flame of Asgard for so many eons that the Queen fears it has gone extinct by now. Yet since Loki is departing, he _must fare_ better, mustn’t he, so maybe his hereditary glamour survived even though almost three-thousand years of studying Seiᵭr tell her how very unlikely that is.

Although, she thinks, a smile stealing onto her lips, she should not be surprised that Loki would be the one to challenge the laws of magic. He has always been special. The first time she held him and looked into his eyes, seeing the intelligence in them, she knew that Loki was no ordinary child. She has had dealings with the Jötnar before the last great war Odin waged against Laufey and she knew the Aesir and Loki was not like either of them. While his body remained weakened by the spell that turned him into one of them for years, turning him into a thin and fragile toddler they needed to protect from his older brother’s tempestuous displays of affection for a while, his mind evolved astonishingly quickly. His speech development was rapid. He could already form complex sentences at an age Thor still had difficulties to pronounce the word _observatory_. His curiosity knew no bounds. He became susceptible to the Seiᵭr flowing through the veins of Asgard at a very young age too, tapping into it without knowing it. Objects would move randomly around him at times even _before_ he could speak. He was always eager to learn and so quick to understand.

And now her restless son’s curiosity is driving him to travel to the Svartur, which, according to legend, is a black crystal growing from pure negative energies in the void between the branches of the World Tree. The void, where no one is supposed to travel. The void, where apparently dwells Amora, possibly harnessing the dark energy of the Svartur. And if she used the energy of that crystal to corrupt Loki’s glamour … if _that_ place is where he will face her … if the Enchantress has truly availed herself to such destructive powers … The thoughts flooding into her mind are too horrendous to be transformed into linguistic patterns.

It calms her a little that Thor is apparently with Loki but, then again, her eldest is far too enthused by the enthralling rush of battle even though he still has so much to learn before he will be regarded as a true Asgardian warrior. Both of her sons are too young to venture into such danger by themselves. They are not yet skilled enough in either magic or combat. They do not wield a mighty weapon such as Gúngnir or Mjölnir, the mighty hammer forged of Uru that is still waiting in the vault of Asgard for Thor to become worthy enough to lift it one day. They simply lack the experience.

And there is no way Frigga and the Allfather will arrive on Asgard in time to stop their sons from departing the safety of the Nine Worlds protected by Yggdrasil’s magic. It will take them almost a full day to climb the World Ash until they reach a space in the bark from where they are once more allowed to harness the magic of teleportation, summon the Bifröst or ride Sleipnir, whom the Allfather surely rode across the Realms to chase down the Enchantress.

No, her sons are on their own and the thought almost makes the Queen of Asgard lose her grip on the bark. She hopes against hope that they will not set out on this journey but her worst fears are confirmed when they finally bestride the magnificent, eight-hooved, world-walking stallion and she reaches for the magical signatures of her sons only to find that Thor and Loki are no longer on Asgard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But they have each other. What could possibly go wrong? *snickering in the shadows* No no, it's all going to be fine in the end though. ((I think)).
> 
> The idea that Loki's baby body was really weak after the transformation into Aesir is something that comes up in my other fics as well but the implication that he had to be shielded from Thor's too wild or strong embraces was inspired by a story written by TheAvengersMascott that suggested that even a normal Aesir touch could have broken Loki in this weakened state. The story is called The sum of Misunderstandings and you can find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13875444 
> 
> See you guys soon xoxo


	10. Passage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki reach their destination while Amora is still scheming.

“Is th-that,” Thor stammers after the lightning bolt he summoned hit the spot where the fabric between the worlds has become thin and brittle, slowly opening an oval-shaped gateway into a pulsating darkness that reveals nothing but faint dark purple sparks sizzling in the utter stillness that lies beyond.

“The Void,” says Loki with a smirk. The portal grows until it is about seven feet high and four feet wide and then it stops, its edges glimmering in the same faint purple as the sparks within. “Yes.”

“Have you _lost your mind_ , brother?” Thor bellows at him, pulling him back by the shoulders as he tries to cross the magical threshold.

“Careful,” Loki reprimands him. “If I lose contact, I might inadvertently close it and then I’ll have to search for it again.”

“We cannot just journey into the Void!” Thor continues his harangue, oblivious of his words. “What if we get lost? What if the Norns deny us passage? What if they forbid our return? How do you even know that the Void is where Amora dwells? How would she even be able to abide between the branches of Yggdrasil?”

“Again, so many questions.” Loki sighs far more theatrically than necessary. “It’s so very unlikely for you to be that nervous, brother,” he points out, flashing Thor a defiant grin. “What ails the Son of Odin so?”

“Loki, please,” Thor urges him and the fear in his words— _Perhaps it is respect, let us be generous and call it respect, shall we?_ —fills Loki with glee. “I know you seek revenge and I know you have an unparalleled appetite for exploring the secrets of the Realms but you have read about the dangers lurking in the Void as have I. In fact, I think you possess much more knowledge about it than I do, which is why—”

“I know that the Void is not as dangerous as the books make it out to be if you know how to world-walk,” Loki talks over him, “which, as we have established already, I am perfectly capable of.” _Well, it is still dangerous and perfectly capable of is a slight overstatement, is it not?_

 _Be silent, runt_.

Thor wears an expression of utter wretchedness. “Just tell me how you know that Amora is in there.”

“Well, I don’t know for sure,” Loki replies and then giggles when Thor’s mouth gapes open in confusion. “I said I had a fairly good idea where to start looking, didn’t I?”

“So, what you’re asking me is to set foot into the Void on a whim?” Thor shakes his head. “You truly have gone mad.”

“Mhm.” Loki strokes his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “If I recall correctly, I never requested your companionship. You _imposed_ it on me and I will not hold it against you if you are too anxious now that you know where exactly I intend to look for her.” He smirks when Thor narrows his eyes at him. “I suppose I’ll see you back at the palace?”

“Hold on,” Thor says and pulls him back as Loki tries to set foot into the space between the branches of Yggdrasil once more. “Just tell me one thing, please. What makes you so sure that this is not a trap?” 

Loki blows out his annoyance in one sharp breath. Ever since he woke from Eir’s healing-magic-induced slumber, his older brother has not quite been himself. He voluntarily picked up several books and not only did he read them but also retained the information. He expressed his love for him in a way he never did before. He even stroked his norndamned hair. And now he shies away from an opportunity to hurl himself headfirst into danger?

“By Odin’s ravens, what is the matter with you, Thor?” Loki asks. “I hardly recognize you and that's quite peculiar, isn't it? _I_ found out that my life is a lie but _you_ are the one who behaves oddly. Why?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I am fairly certain that, after everything she did, Amora has advanced from a mere nuisance to a thorn in your father’s flesh,” Loki elaborates and it doesn't escape his attention that Thor cringes when he calls Odin his father. “You ventured into far more dangerous situations to hunt down far less wanted enemies. So, I am asking you again, what is the matter?”

“Far more dangerous situations?” Thor echoes, darting a glance at him that articulates better than words ever could that he thinks him insane. “I have never stepped into the Void.”

“Neither have I,” Loki replies. “But I suppose there is a first time for everything, isn’t there? So, let’s go.”

“I just want you to be honest,” Thor pleads.

“What makes you think that I am not?” Loki asks but he silences his brother by raising his hand before Thor has a chance to remind him of all the times he has pranked him and lied to him in the past. “I don’t know if it’s a trap or not,” Loki concedes after a pause. “There are few beings in the Realms who rival my cunning intellect but, unfortunately, Amora is one of them. I cannot tell you what she knows or what her plan is. I already told you what I think her motive was; which means the most likely conclusion is that she thinks me dead.” He pauses once more, rethinking the events leading up to this very moment. “I don’t know if Amora could have anticipated that the healers would extract my glamour. I, for one, didn’t know such a thing was even within the bounds of possibility.”

“Not even mother did,” Thor confirms and the nonchalance in the words that follow feel like a blow to Loki’s gut. “She was sure the extraction was going to kill you. Father was too.”

A shock wave of dread rocks Loki’s entire body. “I beg your pardon?”

“Eir convinced them you were going to live though,” Thor hurries to add when he realizes how his words must have sounded to Loki.

“Which means that, as far as Amora knows, I am dead,” Loki concludes after he digested his brother’s words, “and we have the element of surprise, correct?”

“Correct,” Thor agrees but his face remains pinched, as if someone has just forced him to eat a dozen lemons.

“What?” Loki asks, his patience with his uncharacteristically flustered brother wearing paper-thin.

“I just wish I’d already proven myself worthy enough to wield Mjölnir,” Thor mumbles. “I dare say it’d be rather useful against Amora, don’t you think?”

“That accursed hammer will come to you in time,” Loki assures his brother with as much sincerity and compassion as he can feign for Thor’s obsession with proving himself worthy enough to wield the bulky weapon before he steps into the Void. This time, Thor does follow him and, as the darkness envelops him, Loki finds himself chanting a silent prayer to the Norns. If Amora really knew of his Jötunn heritage and if she further knew that it was concealed beneath his Asgardian magic, she could have poisoned him with the goal of exposing his true form to instigate his banishment and thus thwart his schooling on the Realm Eternal, preventing him from further mastering the art of sorcery. She could have come by the knowledge that it was possible to survive magic extraction, even if he and even Frigga were not aware of that. She was gifted with the ability to uncover what others, even kings and powerful sorcerers, wish to keep hidden for a good reason and cursed with an insatiable curiosity to see what would happen if she used what she uncovered to wreak havoc.

That is precisely the problem with the Enchantress, Loki thinks. Her mind is a dark abyss, much darker and deeper than his own, and he would be damned if he could see the demons lurking at the bottom of it.

* * *

“You’ll be mine after all, darling,” Amora purrs softly as she focuses on the task of drawing the princeling’s glamour out of the crystal she stole from the Queen with an extraction spell that hovers over the black pinecone-shaped gem in a net of flimsy, golden threads. “Well, your magic will be and your magic is the only part of you that isn’t a dreadful disappointment to everyone around you, isn’t it?”

 _Oh, Loki_. 

That poor thing probably still believes she once liked him. Well, she did find him attractive, if only because compared to his brutish brother and his witless admirers, Loki _is_ rather attractive, with a slender build, cheekbones like cut gemstones, brilliant green eyes and an intellect so sharp it could neatly split a block of ice in two. But Amora is far more interested in magic than she is in people’s beauty or sexual prowess and the one thing that made Loki truly, _irresistibly_ attractive was that he was brimful with magic. Unlike any sorcerer she met before him, be they Asgardian or alien, Loki used to absorb magic whenever he traveled to places where the air was thick with it and whatever magical object he touched, his body absorbed the signature without him having to consciously cast a spell. She witnessed it several times. She would cast invisible energy fields around him to render his magical signature visible and she could see the magic inside of him latch onto even the faintest of signatures wafting through the air and pull them towards him as swiftly as a toad catches a fly. 

Loki himself didn’t seem to be fully aware of this ability and the Allfather forbade the Queen to tutor him in this regard. At least, that is what Karnilla—her own tutor, well, former tutor—once implied when she muttered under her breath how Odin and Frigga were squandering the prince’s magic wielding skills.

Amora always suspected his skills came from the most powerful of his signatures, the one nourishing all the others, that spark of Yggdrasil’s magic in its pure, unharnessed form that flickered inside of him as if he was conceived inside the bosom of the World Tree itself, and soon she will see her silent conjecture confirmed.

Amora chuckles once more. Who could have anticipated this turn of events? 

She tried to take the spark of the flame of Asgard from him several times, tried every extraction spell she could find in the Eternal Realm’s comprehensive library, but to no avail. She tried to lure him away from his family then, who didn’t appreciate his magic anyway and crushed his spirits while simultaneously kindling his self-rejection with their favoritism and their traditionalism. But that smug little leech rejected her. After everything she did for him, after all the spells she taught him against his mother’s will, he turned her down for his family. For the Allfather, who chooses to trivialize his worth as a successor to the throne. For the Queen, who obeys Odin like a beast on a leash and fails to encourage his Norn-given talents. For his brother, who is no more perceptive than a loaf of bread and would not recognize the effect his overbearing arrogance has on Loki’s self-esteem if it hit him over the head with a mace. 

Amora knew then that, if Loki chose to stay on Asgard, if he chose to stay loyal to his family, he was no longer worthy of that magic. Amora understood long ago that Asgard is a cancer that has been festering inside the branches of the World Ash since the dawn of the universe and she knows too that it is about time that someone rid the Realms of it. Loki was clearly unwilling to offer his assistance in this quest and, since she found herself unable to deprive him of his magic with an extraction spell, she saw only one option: Extinguish his magic so that he would not be able to wield it on Asgard’s behalf.

But, as so many times before, the princeling surprised her. The healers did too.

Amora returned to the palace twenty-four hours after Loki drank her poison. That poor little thing drank it greedily, always looking for a drop to numb his racing mind. She did not even have to coax him into taking a sip, which was, admittedly, quite disappointing. She had expected to find the prince on the brink of death, his body agonizingly succumbing to the dark magic she has been harnessing ever since she taught Loki how to unveil the signature of portals shortly after she acquired the skill herself and stumbled across the entrance to her current abode rather by accident one day.

Yet, when she entered the palace in the guise of a butterfly, swirling through the healing room, she found it empty. When she flew to his chambers afterwards, she found him resting and gathered from the conversation between Thor and the Queen that the healers had extracted his magic, sustaining his vitals on healing magic.

That was the first surprise.

The second surprise was that they had chosen to store Loki’s magic in a crystal for safekeeping that was now in the Queen’s possession, waiting for her to steal it.

Another silver chuckle slips past the Enchantress’s lips but quickly dies when she feels the resistance of the protection spell the healer has shrouded the crystal in. _Damn you, Eir_. _After all you have done for me, you are now making it difficult?_

The healer extracted Loki’s magic for her. It is lying right in front of her now, waiting for her. She can feel it. She just needs to break through the barrier and Loki’s magic will be hers.

Even if the realization that Eir could perform spells she has not yet mastered initially nagged at her, it immensely lifted Amora’s spirits that the Allfather had apparently left Asgard to scour the Realms for her while she cowered on the ceiling of his son’s chambers undetected. Even the Queen, with her last and every thought focused on finding the antidote to a poison that was not brewed with any ingredients one could find on Asgard or any other of the Nine Realms, remained oblivious to the signature of her magic. Amora watched the Queen for two nights and a day, biding her time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to snatch the crystal from her but growing increasingly more fearful that Frigga would eventually detect her if she dared to approach too closely.

Just when she had grown tired of spying upon the palace, however, came the third surprise. Frigga chose to leave the protection of Asgard, even of the Realms, to seek the counsel of the Norns. Now, all Amora had to do was follow her at a safe distance and wait until the Queen began the descent into the cave, wait for the moment when all of Frigga’s senses would be focused on finding her footing on the slippery bark leading into the abode of the fate weavers.

They foiled her initial plan, yes, but in doing so, they presented her with a far greater opportunity.

In just a moment, she'll imbibe Loki’s magic. His beautiful, powerful, exuberant, fiercely pulsating magic. She will absorb it, savoring it like fine wine, and it will spread through her veins and coalesce with her own, creating a source of unimaginable power. A power with which she will surely be able to take on Queen Frigga and vanquish her in a battle of sorcery. By Hel, she might even be able to confront the Allfather himself. Not that long ago, Amora overheard Karnilla telling one of her sisters that Odin Borson’s senses were slowly but inevitably starting to weaken due to his unnaturally old age and that he would have to appoint his heir before the next millennium reaches Midgard. Yet Loki is lying helpless, bereft of his glamour, and Thor has not yet reached the level of emotional maturity required for such a duty. All Amora has to do now is extract Loki’s magic, absorb it into her own, study it and then pick the right time to dismantle the Royal Family.

With a gleeful laugh, the Enchantress focusses all her energies on shattering the protection spell around the pinecone-shaped crystal, eyes alight with cupidity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope to see you all still as invested in that story as you were two months ago. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> That's it for starters! Those of you who have read my other fics probably know that I have it as my headcanon that Odin used the magic of the Reality Stone to turn Loki into an Aesir to make the spell truly irreversible as long as he lived. I sort of ignored that here because it didn't suit the plot idea, haha. Creative freedom I guess.
> 
> Until next time! :)


End file.
